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Speaker 1: tech stuff. Hey there, welcome to the podcast. My name
Speaker 1: is Chris Polette and I'm an editor here at how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. Today. Sitting next to me, I have writer
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. Hi there. We're talking about our podcast. So
Speaker 1: one of the things we wanted to give a try
Speaker 1: was to talk about some of the great innovators and technology,
Speaker 1: and to kick off our series, we we decided to
Speaker 1: talk about Dean Cayman. Yeah. Um, I don't know about
Speaker 1: about Chris, but the first time I became aware of
Speaker 1: Dean Cayman was back in two thousand one. It was
Speaker 1: the spring of two thousand one. In fact, um, the
Speaker 1: way back machine after two thousand one, Quiet you alright?
Speaker 1: So um so two thousand one and the news, uh,
Speaker 1: news media and the news agencies kind of we're picking
Speaker 1: up on the story about this mysterious invention that was
Speaker 1: going to hit UH and and change the world, change
Speaker 1: the very way we do things in the world, and
Speaker 1: and there weren't really that many details. It had two
Speaker 1: different UM code names, if you will. One of them
Speaker 1: was Ginger and the other was the even more descriptive it,
Speaker 1: which of course meant that all the different UH magazines
Speaker 1: and news the television shows, everyone was saying, what is it?
Speaker 1: Made writing headlines far too easy, so it's almost like
Speaker 1: a money peckon bit. Really really was talking about it. Yes,
Speaker 1: stop talking about it. Yes, it was exactly like that.
Speaker 1: UM so, I along with everyone else, was wondering what
Speaker 1: the heck it was. And there were some there's some
Speaker 1: leaks heading up to the the announcement of it beforehand
Speaker 1: that suggested that it was some sort of scooter, some
Speaker 1: sort of vehicle, personal vehicle and what's that a hoverboard
Speaker 1: and not no unsfortunately not a hoverboard. UM but there
Speaker 1: were people who were just scouring the patent office to
Speaker 1: try and figure out what this could be. And that's
Speaker 1: that's kind of how the news leaked. But ABC's Good
Speaker 1: Morning America. UH actually debuted this and that's when we
Speaker 1: were introduced to the segue. So, yeah, the Seguae that
Speaker 1: was that was Dean Cayman's baby. That's that's what most
Speaker 1: people probably are aware of. But he's worked on a
Speaker 1: lot of projects. The segways just really one of many.
Speaker 1: Um let's give you a little background and Mr Caman,
Speaker 1: Um he holds more than four hundred and forty US
Speaker 1: and foreign patents, so he's a busy, busy guy. It's
Speaker 1: pretty impressive. Um. He's an engineer, which means that he
Speaker 1: looks at the world as a series of problems and
Speaker 1: tries to figure out how to solve them. Uh, yes,
Speaker 1: I was. I was reading about one problem where he
Speaker 1: uh he actually saw somebody having difficulty negotiating a wheelchair
Speaker 1: up up a series of stairs, and so that resulted
Speaker 1: in a system called the Independence. I bought four thousand
Speaker 1: mobility system which is marketed by Johnson and Johnson and
Speaker 1: it it actually is very like the Segue. It's got
Speaker 1: a it balances, it's a wheelchair that balances on four
Speaker 1: smallish wheels and it sort of stands people in wheelchairs up.
Speaker 1: Is very cool. Yeah, they can actually the wheels can
Speaker 1: extend so that they're sort of balanced vertically, so the
Speaker 1: person can can be who would normally be at wheelchair
Speaker 1: height can actually elevate up to the height of an
Speaker 1: average human being, which is is that is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I mean they talk about how people and using these
Speaker 1: chairs can do things like like give a person a
Speaker 1: hug without the person having to bend over. I mean
Speaker 1: simple things like that that a lot of us take
Speaker 1: for granted. Um, you know, it's it's actually pretty amazing. Uh.
Speaker 1: And of course it can do things like it can
Speaker 1: negotiate stairs, it can go up curbs. It's it's you
Speaker 1: have to watch videos of this thing. It is really
Speaker 1: really cool. And that does predate the segue at some
Speaker 1: of the technology that went into the eyebot later he
Speaker 1: adapted for the segue. UM. He also early on created
Speaker 1: an automatic injection device. It was actually something that that
Speaker 1: you would have surgically implanted that would uh allow you
Speaker 1: to have automatic injections and things like insulin um. I
Speaker 1: mean he's your point, Yeah, he's he's uh, he's quite
Speaker 1: remarkable in the sense that, yeah, he does look at
Speaker 1: the world and see he looks for problems that can
Speaker 1: be solved. UM and he does it through technology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of the devices he's come up with two
Speaker 1: are are in the medical field. He's especially fond of
Speaker 1: medical projects. UM. But he's his experience doesn't end there. UM.
Speaker 1: He's not justin ventor. He also encourages UM technology technological education.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he's a huge proponent of that. UM. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, we have it. He's the founder
Speaker 1: of First, which is a technic technology competition for for kids.
Speaker 1: We actually have an article on how First works. UM.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know so that that was one of
Speaker 1: the projects. So it's it's not just something that he's
Speaker 1: doing for his own personal glory and and uh for
Speaker 1: the money. It's you know, he's encouraging other people to
Speaker 1: get into it as well. Right, Yeah, actually lives better.
Speaker 1: I watched the video about him talking about First. First
Speaker 1: stands for for inspiration and recognition of science and technology,
Speaker 1: and it's it's an interesting approach. His his perspective was
Speaker 1: that the solution that we're trying to create in order
Speaker 1: to to get kids better educated in science and technology,
Speaker 1: because you know, the United States used to be the
Speaker 1: leader in science and tech, you know, the world leader.
Speaker 1: Everyone looked to us for innovation, and now that's starting
Speaker 1: to slip. There's a lot of innovation out of Europe,
Speaker 1: there's tons in Japan, and and science education in general
Speaker 1: in the United States doesn't seem to be faring all
Speaker 1: that well. So Cayman's approach was to create first, and
Speaker 1: he said, the way we're trying to solve the problem
Speaker 1: right now is we're throwing resources at it, like more,
Speaker 1: more teachers, more money. But his point of view was
Speaker 1: that it wasn't a resource problem. It wasn't that it
Speaker 1: was a demand problem that children weren't demanding science education.
Speaker 1: They didn't and see it as important. Um for one thing,
Speaker 1: it was a it's a cultural uh problem. Our culture
Speaker 1: tends to value things like celebrity or athletic ability, and
Speaker 1: so without that cultural foundation to value things like science
Speaker 1: and technology and innovation, you can't expect children to really
Speaker 1: embrace that sort of education. So even if you have
Speaker 1: the best education in the world, that the kid isn't
Speaker 1: engaged you, there's no benefit. So his approach is first,
Speaker 1: where it's this series of competitions where he gets kids excited.
Speaker 1: He tells them there's a way that you can compete.
Speaker 1: You can show how how smart you are, you can
Speaker 1: really look at a problem figure out the best way
Speaker 1: to solve it. Your approach is going to be totally
Speaker 1: different from everyone else's approach and it may change the world.
Speaker 1: And taking that he's really expanded this this program quite
Speaker 1: a bit. It it grew exponentially year over year, like
Speaker 1: the original one I think of, like you know, um
Speaker 1: thirteen schools, but recently he's been filling up the Georgia
Speaker 1: Dome with the last time I looked at it was
Speaker 1: around thirteen thousand schools involved in this program. It's amazing
Speaker 1: and it's it's really really one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: I wanted to kind of focus on him today because
Speaker 1: um as as Chris pointed out, he's he's not just
Speaker 1: an inventor. He's encouraging this kind of approach, in this
Speaker 1: kind of worldview among others, which you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: an inventor is great. We need them, We need those
Speaker 1: people to come up with these great ideas. But once
Speaker 1: they're gone, what do you do. He wants to encourage
Speaker 1: this so that we have a generation of inventors, which
Speaker 1: would be amazing. That would be amazing. Maybe we'd get
Speaker 1: our flying cars. You in the flying car I want
Speaker 1: my flying car. Well, UM, you know, the the innovation
Speaker 1: that Mr Kaman has UH has created in the industry,
Speaker 1: and the fact that he has tried to inspire others
Speaker 1: to invent encouraged UH President Clinton to award Mr Cayman
Speaker 1: the National Medal of Technology in two thousand, So he
Speaker 1: has been recognized for his efforts. UM. And you know,
Speaker 1: I know personally that will I'll be happier with a
Speaker 1: generation of adventage when the giant robots come to enslave us, right,
Speaker 1: We'll have somebody who knows how to build something that
Speaker 1: will guess out of that. It's actually kind of funny
Speaker 1: that you mentioned that, because you know that, UM. One
Speaker 1: of his more recent projects was something that robot. You're
Speaker 1: getting ahead of me here, let's pull it up that UM. No,
Speaker 1: the the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA UH
Speaker 1: approached Mr Caman a couple of years ago and they
Speaker 1: had a task for him, and they said what they needed. UM.
Speaker 1: They said that that that that medical to technology had
Speaker 1: advanced at such a rate that when soldiers are in
Speaker 1: the field and they get injured, they there are a
Speaker 1: lot more survivors than there used to be. I mean
Speaker 1: you read about these casualty rates in Iraq, for example,
Speaker 1: and they seem really really high, but there's an even
Speaker 1: higher number of people who are wounded rather than you know,
Speaker 1: sure killed, but we're able to save their lives. But
Speaker 1: the problem is that the technology for dealing with life
Speaker 1: after injury hasn't really kept up with everything else. So
Speaker 1: essentially we're talking about prosthetics here if you've lost an
Speaker 1: arm um. And that's in fact what DARPA came to
Speaker 1: talk to Cayman about. They said, we need an artificial arm,
Speaker 1: a robotic arm that weighs the same as the average
Speaker 1: human arm um, that is the same length as the
Speaker 1: average human arm uh, and that has the ability to
Speaker 1: to do things like pick up a grape or a
Speaker 1: raisin and be able to tell the difference, to be
Speaker 1: able to pick up up grape without crushing it. Um,
Speaker 1: to be able to have the fine motor skills of
Speaker 1: picking up something as small as a raisin um. And
Speaker 1: they said, we needed in two years and we'll give
Speaker 1: you eighteen million dollars to do it. And came in said,
Speaker 1: you guys are nuts, that's just how are you going
Speaker 1: to How am I supposed to build something that has
Speaker 1: the same amount of articulation as a human arm for
Speaker 1: eighteen million dollars in two years. But he visited some veterans,
Speaker 1: he talked to some people, and he he really kind
Speaker 1: of saw the value of the project, even though technologically
Speaker 1: it looked impossible. And so that's where the Luke Arm
Speaker 1: project came out of. And you know where where that
Speaker 1: name comes from, right, I'm guessing it maybe a Star
Speaker 1: Wars reference. In fact, you are correct, sir, is a
Speaker 1: Star Wars reference. But you were talking about giant robots,
Speaker 1: And the reason why I wanted to go back to
Speaker 1: that was because the arm. If you've seen the videos
Speaker 1: of the arm, it resembles the arm of a certain
Speaker 1: famous robotic creature Um who now governs California. No way,
Speaker 1: I'm mixing up actors and characters, but uh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it looks like the Terminator arm um. And in fact,
Speaker 1: apparently in Cayman's uh over A DECA d e k A,
Speaker 1: which is Cayman's company, they have a full sized Terminator
Speaker 1: uh standing there with one of these arms attached from
Speaker 1: place of its normal arm. Yeah, And he's used several
Speaker 1: different methods to try and fine tune the controls. Some
Speaker 1: of them are rely on on thoughts, some of them
Speaker 1: rely on a control system that's in the person's shoes.
Speaker 1: They use their toes essentially to control their arm. Um. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's still working on that the project though. There are
Speaker 1: videos out there on the web. I encourage all of
Speaker 1: you too to find these videos and watch them. They
Speaker 1: are phenomenal. Um. And he's he's hope, he's hoping that
Speaker 1: he can get the program extended so that they can
Speaker 1: do the work that's necessary to finish the project, because
Speaker 1: two years is a very short time to go from
Speaker 1: from the initiation of a project to design to implementation
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, yeah, I mean you've got to understand, like, like,
Speaker 1: when you think about that, how do you power something
Speaker 1: like that? Right? Like, how do you get battery small
Speaker 1: enough to move that? How do you get the motors
Speaker 1: small enough? The human arm has twenty two points of articulation.
Speaker 1: His has eighteen, So that's not bad, it's it's pretty
Speaker 1: it's pretty close. Um but yeah, you when you figure
Speaker 1: that in, he's really had to bend his mind around
Speaker 1: some big problems to try and make that happen. And uh,
Speaker 1: I couldn't do it. I wouldn't even know the first
Speaker 1: place to start. Um. But right now, the way it's designed,
Speaker 1: you couldn't really do a mass production. It's the materials
Speaker 1: are far too expensive. Um. Because you know he's he's
Speaker 1: working on a roof of concept to make sure that
Speaker 1: it can be done. Once you determine how it can
Speaker 1: be done, then you have to figure out, okay, well
Speaker 1: how can this be done economically where you know it
Speaker 1: makes sense to to continue the project. So that's probably
Speaker 1: their next big, big hurdle. It's kind of the same
Speaker 1: way with the segway. You know, I'm sure you remember.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to revolutionize the world, you know, but
Speaker 1: the problem is that our infrastructure doesn't really support it
Speaker 1: and they're really expensive. Well there's that, but you know
Speaker 1: you're expensive. You'd think, well if it if if there
Speaker 1: were pathways for segways, then it wouldn't be as big
Speaker 1: a deal. But there how do you figure that out?
Speaker 1: I mean, the city, each city is going to have
Speaker 1: a different take on this. Are they gonna want people
Speaker 1: zooming around on the sidewalks or on the street. You
Speaker 1: have to that people are going to be responsible and
Speaker 1: drive their segways and ways. That does not cause them
Speaker 1: to pitch off into the bushes, right like a certain
Speaker 1: world leader I refused to mention me right, okay, um
Speaker 1: or lots of other people. It just happens. He's the
Speaker 1: same as that one world leader has been one of
Speaker 1: the famous people who fell off the device that is
Speaker 1: exhossible to fall off of. It turns out not so Yeah,
Speaker 1: with the right determination, you can do it. But um
Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean, and they were working on other
Speaker 1: projects like the centaur, the concept four wheels segue which
Speaker 1: you could actually stand up on the back wheels, very
Speaker 1: much like the Yeah, it wasn't that they were thinking
Speaker 1: about that from military applications too, aren't they. Yes, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember reading about that. Um yeah that was that
Speaker 1: was kind of curious where that project is now? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I checked this morning as we were doing research
Speaker 1: for the podcast, and I did not see it on
Speaker 1: their website, so you know, on the back burner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a concept. Um. But actually as of this morning,
Speaker 1: as we were doing research, I ran across a brand
Speaker 1: new project UH. On September, UH Dean Cayman was supposed
Speaker 1: to be working with Nokia, the cell phone manufacturer from Finland,
Speaker 1: UH to announce a calling all innovators competition. According to
Speaker 1: this article I'm I saw on c net UH, it's
Speaker 1: basically a project to deliver water purification to UH to
Speaker 1: individual communities for for less than two thousand dollars each
Speaker 1: once they get into mass production UM to quote the
Speaker 1: scene an article UM, And essentially they're they're trying to
Speaker 1: get people to come up with inexpensive ways that this
Speaker 1: could be delivered UH to two people to improve their
Speaker 1: quality of life. So you know yet another UM you know,
Speaker 1: health related project innovation, you know, something that that could
Speaker 1: simplify a very difficult problem to overcome. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: this actually came out of I remember reading that he
Speaker 1: was looking into low cost generators UM energy generators for
Speaker 1: for UM community that otherwise don't have them, and they
Speaker 1: put off a lot of heat, and so he's thinking,
Speaker 1: how can I use this heat that's otherwise just going
Speaker 1: to waste, and that he used that to kind of
Speaker 1: look into a water purification system. So UM, you know
Speaker 1: it's interesting that he looks at he it's when a
Speaker 1: project finished, it's not really finished because he says, what
Speaker 1: else can I do with this? Which is another good
Speaker 1: mark of an innovator. Um, but I got my information
Speaker 1: from the Coldbert rapport, so I you know, I only
Speaker 1: I only look at the the satirical sources of information. Apparently, Well,
Speaker 1: I guess that's a you know, that's a good portrait
Speaker 1: of Dean Caman right there. Definitely look into him a
Speaker 1: little more. He's an interesting person. If you ever get
Speaker 1: a chance to hear him speak, I recommend it because
Speaker 1: he he does really convey that sense of excitement and
Speaker 1: purpose far better than I ever couldn't. But don't go
Speaker 1: away yet, because when we come back, we're gonna tell
Speaker 1: you a little bit about an article that it makes
Speaker 1: our co worker Josh Clark yell out, great Scott. This
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Speaker 1: more money. Try Go to Meeting free, visit go to
Speaker 1: meeting dot com slash tech stuff. So Chris, yeah, have
Speaker 1: you ever heard Josh yell great Scott? Well, I've heard
Speaker 1: him yell a great many things right right next to
Speaker 1: well that's true. Well he only he only really yells
Speaker 1: out Great Scott when he's reading a very specific article
Speaker 1: that would be how the DeLorean Works. It's because it
Speaker 1: tweaks his flux capacitor. I figured, since we're talking about innovators,
Speaker 1: we couldn't leave Doc Brown out of it, right, right?
Speaker 1: Do you think there's any way to get a segue
Speaker 1: up to eighty eight miles? And I sure hope not.
Speaker 1: But if you want to know how to get a
Speaker 1: Dolorea enough to eight eight hour, you can read How
Speaker 1: the DeLorean Works. That's live right now on how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Let us know what you think. Send
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