Inno Madness champion: Finger Flyer teaches students drone technology, looks to expand into robotic arms

Erin Morrow, a student at High Point University, is pictured with one of the assembled drones from her company, Finger Flyer. Finger Flyer sells educational STEM drone-building kits.

Erin Morrow

By Lillian Johnson - Reporter

March 17, 2023, 07:30am EDT

Young students need to learn the latest technology – and they can, with local startup Finger Flyer.

Created by High Point University student Erin Morrow and business partner Jacob Parker, a student at Georgia Tech, Finger Flyer offers educational STEM kits for handheld quadcopter drones that use gesture-controlled sensors. The kits, which include an emergency remote, are paired with a full week’s worth of lab activities that explore the assembly of the drone, the physics principles and drone technology.

For the company’s innovative combination of hands-on STEM education and drone technology, TBJ named Morrow a Founder Under 25 honoree last September.

Erin Morrow, co-founder of Finger Flyer, presents the company's drone kits and lesson plans at High Point University.

courtesy of Erin Morrow

Although it also offers direct B2C e-commerce, Finger Flyer has seen most of its success in its B2B model, selling directly to schools. Morrow told TBJ that Finger Flyer has been sold to schools in over two dozen states and currently has a gross revenue of approximately $57,000.

“This time of the year is the busiest for us with schools reaching out, so we are expecting [our gross revenue] to increase substantially before June,” she said.

With two handheld drone products – one pre-assembled and the other a build-it-yourself kit – a success, Finger Flyer is preparing to launch a third product, a gesture-controlled robot arm to be called Rossum Robot.

“The wearer would put on a sleeve that has a matrix of sensors on it. As you move the arm, the robot arm mimics the movement,” Morrow explained.

Morrow said that the robot arm will be more hands-on and focus on coding and assembling, whereas the drone focuses on building and investigating. Some components of the robot arm can be 3D-printed if a school has that capability, she added.

Finger Flyer offers educational STEM kits, such as a quadcopter drone (pictured above). The company is working to build a new kit for a robot arm.

Lee Adams

“We did the market research and nothing really compared to our idea,” Morrow said. “Then we just had to figure out if it was feasible, because one of Finger Flyer’s missions is to provide all of our resources at a low cost so that any school that’s interested can afford them.”

Morrow did not provide a potential price point for the Rossum Robot, but each of the drone products retails for $40 each online. She previously told TBJ that when a school orders the drone kits in bulk, the cost ranges from $35 to $50 depending on the quantity ordered.

Finger Flyer has a finalized prototype of the robot arm and is currently working on scaling and marketing for the product. She hopes to officially launch it by the end of the current school year, which would give educators the opportunity to buy it before the 2023-24 academic year.

The company will also provide lesson plans for the Rossum Robot.

“For Finger Flyer, we did a lot of science, technology, engineering and math – that’s our whole premise,” Morrow said. “For Rossum Robot, we are trying to make it interdisciplinary with all subjects, trying to incorporate English, language arts and history so that there’s more opportunity for lessons.”

Q&A with Erin Morrow

What do you think drove your success in the competition? It was my support system. Between family back home (New Hampshire) and my professors here, we were sending out the survey like crazy. My mom was posting on Facebook. Kathy Elliot, the director of High Point’s entrepreneurship program, was texting me updates if I was down a percent. Classmates I’ve never talked to before would come up to me and say, “the new one came out and I voted,” before I even realized [the new round] had been posted. If it wasn’t for that, I don’t know if I would have made it to the semifinals. I was so happy, even if I didn’t get to the semifinals, seeing how many people voted.

Do you think the support you’ve received from High Point has also helped your business? Definitely. We do pitch and business plan competitions on campus. If I hadn’t done those my freshman year, I don’t think I would be where I am right now. From my freshman year to now, we’ve had substantial sales and we’re no longer in the red. It opened up a lot of opportunities and doors because High Point has such a big network. People from all over North Carolina would hop onto our website … and we got orders from local schools here. We were originally from New Hampshire, but in High Point is where Finger Flyer blew up.