MAChine Learning

Jenny Young and her Brooklyn Robot Foundry franchise are making tech education fun.

- BRIAN CONTRERAS

On a sunny fall morning in New York City, the engineers at the Brooklyn Foundry have Robot started working on their latest project. Some are laying out different electronic components they'll be assembling today; others have begun wiring together circuitry.

Then, over the background chatter of busy roboticists comes a warning: "Oh, don't put it in your mouth. If you swallow that, we call an ambulance." It's not the sort of thing you're likely to hear on the factory floors at Tesla or other big manufacturers, but in the Brooklyn Robot Foundry's R&D lab, it barely registers. After all, most of the people here are 6 to 10 years old, and the "robot" they're building is a simple circuit-an LED light connected to a button connected to batteries-that, taped together with a block of balsa wood, a toilet paper tube, and a Slurpee lid, resembles an old-fashioned flashbulb camera.

Despite what its name might suggest, the Brooklyn Robot Foundry is a STEAM education company, not an industrial manufacturer. By offering a variety of low-intensity workshops, including in-school and afterschool programs, summer camps, birthday parties, and even adult-focused "Sipsn-Circuits" mixers, the company aims to make electronics, mechanics, and computer programming fun.