We’ve been working hard on a totally new-and-improved Marty over the past year. The new version, Marty v2, has been completely redesigned from the ground-up to be easier to use, stronger, and with great new features including bluetooth, sound & voice, add-ons & expansions, swappable top-plates and face-plates, smart motors, and a much easier build with fewer screws and clip-in arms and legs!

Today, we’re launcing a Kickstarter campaign for Marty v2. You can now pre-order your very own Marty v2 and help support Robotical, delivering them worldwide in March 2020.

We’re offering a range of perks that we hope will suit most people — and based on the feedback we’ve received, we’re pleased to announce we’ll also be offering Disco Marty and Grabbing-Hand add-ons too!

Here’s a quick list of what’s new:

• Marty v2 now has Sound and Voice!
• A new modular expansion system (compatible with SparkFun QWIIC, Adafruit STEMMA and Seeed Studio Grove), with many add-ons and extensions already in the pipeline (like Disco Marty!)
• Totally new and redesigned plastic parts, with fewer and bigger screws, and a much simpler, frustration-free build with clip-on legs, arms and a ‘only fits one-way’ design!
• Bluetooth and USB connectivity, in addition to WiFi. You’ll be able to use Marty v2 on a wide range of devices.
• Robotical’s new Smart Servos - bringing servos into the 21st century, using an I2C bus and with an integrated microcontroller providing position and power feedback readings. These are a totally awesome product on their own!
• Quick-swap rechargeable battery module, with spares and a charge bank for schools and code clubs.
• Swappable top-plates and face-plates, making it much easier to start customising with 3D printing and allowing totally-different faces to be quickly swapped on to a Marty (stay tuned for an LCD Screen face coming soon…)

We’ll be shaing more behind-the-scenes details soon here on our blog, and in upcoming Kickstarter backer updates. This crowdfund is also pretty different to our first one! We’re in a much better position to complete it on time, with the injection-moulding tools already completed and now being tuned, and much more extensive design testing than we had back in 2016.

The current Marty v1 will continue to be available whilst stocks last. Marty v2 can do all the same great things, and more!

Check out our Kickstarter page for much more detail and to pre-order your very own Marty v2. Please also share it with anyone you think will be interested 😉