We will be launching one or more products under our Maker’s Pet brand.

The first product to launch will be the Maker’s Pet Mini educational pet robot. Designed for STEM high-school and coledge students, educators - as well as STEM makers, Arduino-based Mini comes with a 360-degree LiDAR, ROS2-based room mapping and autonomous navigation (SLAM).

Thanks to our [Kaia.ai software platform for intelligent robots], Mini will act as a miniature intelligent pet - roam around the room, play with toys and patrol the room. Equipped with a skills store, Mini users will be able to download new robot skills and code and publish new robot skills. The skills will be written in Python.

Mini and its Kaia.ai software have been crafted to radically ease its learning curve. Mini’s users - particularly the high-school and colledge STEM students - will be able to level up their hands-on STEM skills, gradually easing into intermediate robotics and beginner Artificial Intelligence. Specifically, this product takes STEM students beyond the basic line follower and manually-controlled (RC) robots (including VEX, FIRST) - into robotics mapping, navigation (SLAM) and AI-based decision making, while reducing, hiding and abstracting the associated technical operation complexity to a level that can be consumed by high-school STEM students.

Mini will come with a wealth of step-by-step video and written tutorials. As a bonus, 3D printing enthusiasts will be able to modify Mini’s 3D-printed enclosure (“skin”) to personalize their pet robot.

Price-wise, we expect to price Mini in the $100-$200 range - comparable with beginner STEM robot kits (e.g. the miniature line following and sonar-based Arduino and Micro:bit robots).

We plan to launch Mini sometime in second half of 2024 and mainly target US customers at first. Once we figure out international shipping, customs duties and related issues, we plan to set up a distributor network and pursue international customers, including India.

After launching Mini, depending on the Kickstarter launch experience, product demand and financial results, as of the date of this post we are planning to also launch one or more followup Maker’s Pet products.