A Message from Steve of Stemy Stuff

I have been teaching Technology and Engineering in Wisconsin for approximately 18 years at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Every few years a new product comes out that creates a lot of excitement in the education marketplace. Upon searching the Internet, I came upon the Dobot, robotic arm system. I was instantly intrigued, but was cautious as it seemed too good to be true. I am constantly searching for cost effective, educational rich, and industry sound technologies to engage students and teach them the skills and knowledge to be successful in the 21st century. I was hoping the Dobot would meet those needs.

I contacted Dobot and they put me in touch with In-Position Technologies, an automation product distributor and integrator serving markets in Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. In-Position Technologies is the main distributor for the Dobot in the United States. Upon first talking with them, I experienced nothing but the utmost attention and professionalism from all of their staff. I could instantly tell that they were interested in helping educators get young people excited about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education. I inquired with them on becoming a Midwest reseller of the Dobot through my educational consulting company called STEMy Stuff LLC. I felt very confident that In-Position Technologies with their proven track record and professionalism would be a great company to work with. Finally, I ordered a Dobot to experiment with myself to find out what all the hype was about.

When I received the Dobot, I was instantly impressed with the build quality. The robotic arm was a very solid machine that can take the abuse of a K-12 classroom or technical college. The second thing I found out was just how easy it was to set up and begin controlling. It was as simple as loading the software and plugging the machine in. My real interest was to see just how easy, yet educationally sound it was to program to do different tasks. Through the Teach and Playback mode I was able to instantly get the Dobot to perform tasks with the suction cup end effecter such as picking up and sorting plastic water bottle caps. This quick success is so important to capture student interest right away. I then moved on to using the flowchart based programming language called Blockly. In my experience, this is where the real learning begins. Blockly is tremendous for engaging students in Computation Thinking. Computation Thinking is so important for anyone as it is the epitome of logical thinking and problem solving. Not only can you use Blockly, but it also shows the programming language in code at the same time. This is a tremendous, educationally sound method to help students progress into industry-based computer programming in an age appropriate way.

After using the Dobot extensively for a number of days, I was overwhelmingly impressed. I have since become a distributor of the Dobot robotic arm system. I am confident in the product, its educational richness, and In-Position Technologies support for the product. STEMy Stuff LLC looks forward to serving you as a distributor in Wisconsin. If you have any questions regarding the Dobot and its effectiveness in education, please do not hesitate to contact me at steve@stemystuff.com.

Thank you,

Steve Meyer

Member : STEMy Stuff LLC