Minds-i Inc., a five-year-old Liberty Lake company that started out researching and developing static, motorized, robotic, and remote-control toys, has ridden the recent wave of interest in robots and aerial drones to shift heavily into education.

The company, a spinoff of Altek Inc. that operates from Altek’s quarters at 22819 E. Appleway Ave. in Liberty Lake, says it now is deriving 85 percent of its revenue from the sale of drone and robotics lab kits and related teaching curriculum to school districts.

As an example of what now is its dominant focus, it late last month collaborated with Mobius Science Center and The Toolbox, a manufacturing accelerator space provider, to put on a Robotics Fair and Certification Class for 17 local educators in The Toolbox building at 840 E. Spokane Falls Blvd., in the McKinstry Center.

“The point of hosting this Robotics Fair, and providing this training and certification, is to enable educators in underserved areas to enhance their STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) curriculum by adding something fun, something awesome,” said Andy Barrett, managing partner of the Toolbox, in an advance press release about the event.

The two-day certification class was designed to teach educators how to build robots and drones and then how to program the software that runs them. Each educator also was given a kit to take back to their classroom or program that included a drone controller, a test rack kit, tools, a workshop binder, and a thumb drive with a drone code library.

Mike Marzetta and his wife, Christy Marzetta, co-own Minds-i. The company started as a result of them both experiencing somewhat of a mid-life career crisis. They began writing down ideas and things they value and eventually came up Minds-i Inc., a separate company from Altek, which in the last two years has capitalized on the public’s interest in robotics and aerial drones.

Minds-i has gone on to develop an extensive curriculum manual for educators that is focused on building drones and robots. Accompanying computer software programs enable the devices to work. Marzetta says he’s not aware of another drone and robotics company that teaches users how to create and program the devices.

“All I’ve seen thus far are ready-made kits that you pull out of the box and they’re already working,” says the 44-year-old Marzetta.

“We’ve gotten lucky now that the world thinks drones are cool,” he says.

Marzetta declines to disclose Altek’s and Minds-i’s annual revenues. However, he told the Journal of Business in an interview a little over a decade ago that Altek’s annual revenue back then was about $25 million per year. 

“I will say we have seen an increase in revenue,” he says, referring to that figure. He adds, “Revenue and profits are as good as we’ve ever seen them.”

Minds-i was originally going to partner with PCS Edventures!, a Boise-based developer of lab and technology programs for schools, to handle sales and distribution. However, that deal never materialized. Marzetta says Minds-i now has multiple distributors across the country.

Larry Bernstein serves as Minds-i’s executive coach from his offices in Woodstock, Vt. Bernstein is a former president of Pawtucket, R.I.-based Hasbro Toy Group.

Minds-i has sold to individual teachers and school districts in the area. Most, if not all, Spokane-area school districts have used Minds-i curriculum in the classroom in some capacity in the last few years, Marzetta claims.

With just five employees, Marzetta says Minds-i struggles to keep up with order requests for curriculum and kits. He says orders are now coming in from other parts of the West Coast. Altek manufactures all the parts necessary for the drones and robotics kits.

Minds-i’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) robotics curriculum manual is the first introduction for students to help them become familiar with the basics of robotics and programming. The curriculum manual cost is $450. The introductory drone curriculum manual carries the same price.

A robotics resource lab kit for teachers is $975, a four-wheel robotics kit is $2,600, and a six-wheel robotics kit—called the Marz rover—costs $2,775. Meanwhile, a four-rotor drone kit sells for $2,400, and a combined six-wheel robotics, four-rotor drone package is $4,950.

The Marz rover, a robotic crawler, used to be Minds-i’s leading seller, but the popularity of the drone has eclipsed the rover in sales. 

Levi Wilson, Minds-i’s general manager also teaches classes with Marzetta. Wilson says the lion’s share of Minds-i’s revenue now comes from school districts purchasing kits.

Along with the recent robotics fair here, Wilson says he and Marzetta will be teaching similar training seminars at Bakersfield Community College in California this month.

Separate from the educational market, he says, “The rest of our customers are individual hobbyists who love drones and robotics. We have some customers who routinely spend $400 to $500 a month for supplies and replacements for their drones.”

 Marzetta says, “It’s just not a huge operation at this point. This idea was really incubated at Altek; we’ve been able to leverage the resources from there.” 

Marzetta has been Altek’s president for 13 years. His father, Al Marzetta, started the manufacturing company in 1980 and still has a seat on the company’s board of directors. 

Altek, which employs nearly 200 people, currently specializes in contract manufacturing, injection mold tooling, plastic injection molding, machining, custom painting and finishing, and assembly and testing. The majority of its customers are in the aerospace, industrial, and medical fields, Marzetta says.

“I’d have to say that business is fairly balanced between the three sectors, but aerospace is the fastest-growing of the three, with 40 percent of what we do dedicated there,” he says. “Just a few years ago that figure was 25 percent.”

In his tenure, however, Marzetta says he’s most proud of the fact that the culture of the company has improved. And a big part of that started with his approach to leadership.

“I don’t go around telling people what to do anymore because they know what to do,” Marzetta says. “I was trying to press my will on the organization.” Over time he says he began giving up control and encouraged his leading managers to do the same.

“It isn’t a light switch that you just flick on,” Marzetta says. “It takes time. But what I’ve discovered is that when we invest in our employees and give them ownership of what it is we’re all trying to achieve, then employees end up doing more than I ask. That’s what I’ve been real excited about lately.”