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I am talking to Bambi Brewer about the new Finch Robot 2.0. Bambi is the director of Engineering at Birdbrain Technologies, the creators of the Finch Robot. Bambi works from the beginning to the end of the development process to design new products, ensure software is reliable and easy to use, and create curriculum pathways to help take robotics projects to the next level.\xa0

She has a bachelor in math and physics from Rhodes College, and a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University. She has experience in education at all levels and has been designing robotics curricula since 2013. In her free time, she raises a teenager and knits obsessively.

Let\u2019s have a look at the\xa0 Finch Robot v2, BirdBrain\u2019s latest creation. It\u2019s of course the successor of the popular first Finch Robot and a big shift is the use of the BBC micro:bit as a computational brain of this robot. The finch is a robot that targets kids from Kindergarten to college and allows them to experience their coding creations in a hands-on, physical way.\xa0

The micro:bit already features quite a few sensors, such as the accelerometer or buttons. But Finch 2.0 adds even more cool stuff: a whiteboard marker holder, color LEDs, buzzer, light sensor, distance sensor and even line tracking sensor. It\u2019s powered by a rechargeable battery that lasts 7+ hours. And little details make it special for me - things as visual markers on the wheels so you can count the iterations easily.\xa0

That\u2019s the geeky hardware bit - the software looks even more exciting with block-based programming in all forms and apps as well as text-based coding supported. We go into details in the interview.\xa0