WINNER - 2026 Purple Dragonfly Book Award (1st Place), STEM

RECIPIENT of the Mom's Choice Award® Gold - Honoring Excellence

FINALIST - 2026 Literary Global Children's Book Awards (Educational and Nonfiction Categories)

GOLD WINNER - 2026 Readers' Choice Book Awards (Ages 8-12 Category)

From the award-winning So You Want To Be A... Series

GRAND PRIZE - 2026 Purple Dragonfly Book Awards

SILVER AWARD - 2026 CIPA EVVY Book Awards, Children's Nonfiction

What if the career you were born for hasn't been fully invented yet?

Robotics engineering is one of the fastest-growing STEM fields in the world, and the people shaping it are equal parts scientist, coder, inventor, and creative problem solver. This book shows kids exactly what that work looks like: no sugar coating, no science fiction, just the real thing.

So You Want To Be A Robot Builder brings readers ages 10 to 14 inside the daily life of robotics engineers. The mechanical systems they design. The code they write. The artificial intelligence they build into machines so robots can sense, learn, and adapt. It's a career where computer science meets hands-on engineering, where you might spend your morning debugging software and your afternoon testing a prototype that finally walks across a room without falling over.

Kids will discover how robots actually get built, from the earliest design sketches to field testing in unpredictable environments. They'll learn why robotics demands teamwork across mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, software development, and AI, and how each specialist contributes something essential. They'll meet the visionary builders whose machines changed what we thought technology could do.

This is also a book about what it takes: the patience to start over when a prototype fails, the analytical thinking to diagnose problems nobody has seen before, and the tenacity to keep building something that has never existed.

For kids who love science and coding, who get excited by engineering challenges, or who spend their free time figuring out how things work, this is a career guide that doesn't talk down. Inside, young readers will find activities that encourage them to think like real engineers: observe, question, experiment, build, and iterate.

The robots that will change the world are still waiting to be built. All they need is someone with the curiosity and vision to create them.

Ages 10-14. Illustrated nonfiction. Science, engineering, and careers for kids who want to build the future.