Edinburgh-based ed-tech start-up Robotical is growing its team ahead of the February launch of the latest stock of its STEM education tool, Marty the Robot.
Marty has been designed to encourage children to take up careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields.
According to Robotical, Marty brings learning coding to life and helps teachers in primary and secondary schools make lessons in these subjects more engaging and fun.
Marty can be coded by users from age eight and above in computer languages including Scratch and Python. It is compatible with single board computers such as Raspberry Pi and can be customised with 3D-printed parts.
The latest version of Marty includes smart sensors enabling the educational robot to copy users’ movements as well as motors to allow for grabbing hands.
After launching Marty V2 last year, Robotical said it plans to quadruple its annual sales in 2021.
Its latest recruitment drive increases the team to 12 and includes the hiring of a lead developer, software engineer, learning experience manager and head of marketing.
Robotical founder and chief executive Sandy Enoch said the new members of the team “each bring the right blend of skills and attitude to give us a top team well placed to help us realise our ambitions for Marty”.
Enoch set up Robotical in 2016 after completing a PhD in robotics. Initial funding was raised through Indiegogo to put the first 1,000 robots into production.
Two further seed rounds followed in 2017 and 2019, raising around £700,000 and enabling it to scale up production, grow distribution, build the team and develop Marty V2.
Marty is currently used in schools in more than 50 countries and the team said it aims to target 6,000 new students in the next year.
