Getting ahead of the rollouts
The Robo Wunderkind team sat in on a 2022 LearnLaunch workshop on impact journeys, led by Dr. Kripa Sundar, the entrepreneur in residence. In August 2023, they started working with Dr. Sundar to get ahead of tracking their impact before large district rollouts, which the team reported reached 20,000+ users in 2024. The snag was that “math and robotics” is not easy to measure or to report to a district.
Where do you even start?
The question was what to measure, and how, for a product that is part analog robotics kit, part coding app that is implemented in K-5 classrooms. The team already had lesson plans and a clear way of teaching, applying the engineering design cycle. Dr. Sundar helped them refine their outcomes, narrowing broad “math and robotics” to specific computational thinking skills. That helped them prioritize what to measure and sharpened what makes the product different.
One map for every team
EdTech Recharge’s lead decision partner, Dr. Sundar started with a simple map (logic model) of the product’s features, how students and teachers use them, and the results the team hopes for, in the short and long term. Sales, instruction, and tech helped build it, so each team’s priorities were folded into the map. As part of preparing for the pilot, Dr. Sundar crafted an impact monitoring plan that can be reused across pilots while supporting business functions. The plan includes a hands-on performance challenge with a rubric to measure students’ computational thinking skills in action plus short student and teacher surveys capturing beliefs and perceptions. By November 2023, the team had two versions of the plan: a low-tech one ready to implement and one to build into the product. This gave them something concrete for funding applications, both in terms of features to build and data they would be able to process.
“Dr. Sundar’s expertise was instrumental in refining our logic model and creating a robust impact monitoring plan. We worked together to clearly define the objectives and she was excellent in managing our collaboration and making sure we stay on schedule. It was a real pleasure to work with her. We couldn’t be happier with the quality of her work and the positive impact she has made on our product.”
—Anna Iarotska (Co-founder and CEO, Robo Wunderkind)
Test first, build second
The RoboWunderkind team started collecting data right away. In fall 2025, Dr. Sundar turned the team’s existing data into a preliminary impact report in just two weeks, because the strong foundation was laid years before. By 2026, the team was writing custom district reports itself, with Dr. Sundar’s review, developing the team’s capacity. Embedding the tools into the product waited on funding, and on a choice to run the tools in schools first and confirm they collect the right information. Data collection never paused, and the team reported that schools shared the reports internally. More recently, Morgan Stanley asked for impact reports in preparation for its investment committee. In Fall 2026, Robo Wunderkind was accepted into Morgan Stanley’s accelerator, now energized and funded to embed their impact measurement within the product.
Your Takeaway
Start early. Clear outcomes helped this team decide what to prioritize and get ready for pilots, and you can start collecting data before the build is done. What would you want to show a district or investor a year from now, and what could you start collecting this month?