Engineering Professor Lands NSF Funding to Teach Robotics to Kids

Robotics is part of nearly all fields of science and has helped to transform work ranging from manufacturing to vehicle technology to surgery. To help students from elementary school through high school to advance their knowledge and creativity using robotics in STEM fields, Anurag Purwar, PhD, Research Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Stony Brook University, has received a $225,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to conduct research and development of SnappyXO, a robotics education platform.

SnappyXO encourages students to think outside the box while simultaneously teaching them many of the engineering principles they will need to succeed in the STEM workforce. Purwar is the primary inventor of SnappyXO and is also CEO of Mechanistic Inc., a Stony Brook startup company.

 The robotics education program is unique in that it enables students to not only build robots but to design and prototype their own robot kits. The incorporated hardware has varied levels of sophistication suitable for students’ level of knowledge. The grant comes from NSF’s SBIR/STTR seed funding program to help commercialize high-risk technological innovations.