Greetings! When I visited Adafruit a couple of weeks ago to tape an “Ask an Engineer” about the iRobot Create, Phil and Ladyada generously invited me to do some guest blogging.
I’m excited to have the opportunity to talk with you about the cool stuff that’s going on in the world of educational robotics. As the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Outreach Program Manager at iRobot, it’s my job — I run iRobot SPARK, our educational outreach initiative.
When I was little, I was pretty sure I was going to grow up to be either a librarian, an actress or the President. I finally decided in high school that of all the things I spent my time doing, I loved working with computers the most. I earned my undergraduate degree in Computer Science with a minor in Anthropology followed by my Master’s and Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University. I’ve worked on projects ranging from robots that roam the desert to Mars rovers in miniature. Some of you might have seen the marriage proposal my husband wrote me in Perl (either the code or the comic strip version).
It’s nice to meet you all, and thanks again to Phil and Ladyada for having me! I look forward to sharing more about what I’m up to at iRobot and news about other awesome robotics programs.
[Editor’s note: Please give Kristen a warm welcome in the comments!]
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George, Nathan, Kevin, Stephanie: Thanks so much! 🙂 It’s great to be here. Glad to hear you enjoyed the interview (I’ve been too shy to watch the final cut myself…)
Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!
I really appreciated that interview when I saw it last week.
I had no idea iRobot had a cheap robot base to start with.
I’n now starting to think up different types of robots to build!
Welcome ! Wonderful interview last week.
Welcome Kristen!
I too enjoyed your interview last week.
George, Nathan, Kevin, Stephanie: Thanks so much! 🙂 It’s great to be here. Glad to hear you enjoyed the interview (I’ve been too shy to watch the final cut myself…)