What’s been taking my time for the last couple months?

We have just launched the new Red Hat Co.Lab Robot Kit, ​which I had the good fortune to create with SparkFun, an open source hardware company. The kit, which will be used in Co.Lab workshops Red Hat runs for middle school girls who don’t have access to high-quality STEM education, uses the BBC micro:bit as the brains and is completely open source.

I’ve written the first (of several) activities for the ‘bot and recorded the “helper” video to go along with the activity, and as of today, the robot is *live*!

I’m not nearly done — this is only the first activity! — but I am delighted that my little ‘bot project has been born.

The tip of the Thank You Iceberg:
* Mel Chernoff, for giving me this job!
* Derek Runberg, who never complained even when I sent him the fifth “just one more quick question” email
* Paula Weigel, who allowed me the opportunity to collaborate on this project;
* Adrian Likins, who helped me get the A/V setup in place (and answered a million questions); and
* C V Britton, who *very* patiently helped me figure out how to explain DC motors in a way that didn’t involve “and then a miracle occurred.”

(PS how lucky am I to have such amazing people in my life?!)