The idea for Pip emerged from our personal frustrations: while Duolingo revolutionized language learning and Khan Academy transformed math education, we never had an equivalent platform for hands-on robotics exploration.

There are two key barriers in robotics education:

1. Onboarding friction: Even basic projects, like getting an Arduino to blink an LED, can require hours of setup and troubleshooting for newcomers.

2. Static curriculum: Current robotics programs use rigid, age-bracketed learning tracks (e.g. 7-10 years, 11-14 years). Engaged learners quickly outgrow the limited available content.

These issues existed when we were growing up, and they persist today.

Pip is designed to break down these barriers:

1. With no assembly needed, Pip is ready to go straight out of the box: connect to Wi-Fi in under a minute and start learning.

2. Integrated with Pip, our web-based curriculum grows with learners: a Duolingo for robotics.

Users first enter the Lab: a self-guided workspace featuring readings, videos, and coding exercises. As they progress, Pip runs their scripts in real-time for an interactive learning experience. Those who want to explore beyond the Lab’s structured lessons can use the Sandbox, where they’re granted complete creative control to code up whatever they imagine.

Pip contains many powerful industry-standard components (time-of-flight distance sensors, a 9-axis IMU [accelerometer, gyroscope, compass], and color and infrared sensors). We’re doing the heavy lifting of writing the firmware to interface with these sensors, making it easy for our learners to utilize everything via simple drag-and-drop coding blocks.

We’re designing Pip to be the tool we wished we had growing up - a platform that welcomes anyone with the curiosity and desire to learn and build.

We'd love to hear about your experiences with robotics kits/platforms, positive or negative.

Pip isn't available yet, but you can sign up for updates at the bottom of our website.

Thank you

That challenge has been going well. I’ve found the character limit to be a great forcing function for concise writing.

To further develop my writing skills, I’m going to start publishing long-form content to supplement my X posts. Like posting to X, it’ll be a good way to time-stamp my thoughts, so I can see what I thought when and why I thought those things.

I also want to improve at distilling my thoughts and thinking more deeply and clearly.

Paul Graham recently published “Writes an Write-nots” where he predicted that “in a couple decades there won’t be many people who can write.” He explains: “The reason so many people have trouble writing is that it's fundamentally difficult. To write well you have to think clearly, and thinking clearly is hard.” With AI, “all pressure to write has dissipated.” Which will lead to: “a world divided into writes and write-nots… a world divided into writes and write-nots is more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and think-nots.”

But PG says today’s “situation is not unprecedented,” comparing it to “preindustrial times,” when “most people's jobs made them strong.” If you want to be strong today, “you work out… but only those who choose to.”

So this is one way I’m working out my brain. I’ve found myself using AI anytime I don’t want to think deeply about a topic, and I fear I’ll slowly become a ‘think-not.’ I won’t use AI to write any essays on this blog, with the intent of re-learning how to translate my thoughts and reasoning onto paper without an intermediary.

Critical feedback appreciated.