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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey guys, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: This is Alison Madamel, the science editor how stuff Works

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Speaker 1: dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science rider how

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Speaker 1: stuff Works dot Com. And this episode we finally took

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Speaker 1: Stuff from the Science Lab on the road, although not

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Speaker 1: very far down the road, yeah, not not too bad

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Speaker 1: to the Georgia Dome for the first championship held April

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Speaker 1: fifteen through April seventeen, and we got up close in

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Speaker 1: personal with robots and their young masters. Yeah. It's it's

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Speaker 1: pretty cool, um just to I guess set the scene

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Speaker 1: for everybody. Uh again, this is the Georgia Dome. This

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Speaker 1: is where they play football hockey like football football. Yeah

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Speaker 1: you like I said that that's kind of the Southern

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Speaker 1: accent football, right I think. So, Yeah, this is the

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Speaker 1: first time, like we both of us went to it

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Speaker 1: last year for the blocks, so this was this was

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Speaker 1: the first time that I've been back to the Georgia Dome.

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Speaker 1: I'm just not a sports guy. Uh. So you have

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Speaker 1: this big you know sports uh auditorium type deal, right,

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Speaker 1: and it's just but just just loaded with nerds. And

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Speaker 1: I mean that in the most complimentary, uh fashion possible,

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Speaker 1: Like these are just awesome nerdiness going on in this

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Speaker 1: this building. UM and of course chaperone's um, adult volunteers, UM.

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Speaker 1: Then and then then kids dressed up as their mascots.

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Speaker 1: It's amazing. Yeah, there are a lot of mohawks going on.

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Speaker 1: I actually I'm a big fan of the mohawks, so

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Speaker 1: that's that's always nice to see some mohawks. And they're

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Speaker 1: pumping music like all sorts of like high energy you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of kind of beats going on, and it looks

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Speaker 1: like everybody was on some sort of sugar um, you know,

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Speaker 1: just in a lot of audio visual stuff, like there's

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Speaker 1: something with like when we first got there, uh, the

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Speaker 1: rock was on this big screen talking about NASA. UM.

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Speaker 1: I didn't know what that was about. But so while

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Speaker 1: we were at the First Championship, we actually took the

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Speaker 1: opportunity to interview the president of First, a gentleman named

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Speaker 1: President Paul Godonus. Let's let Paul explain what FIRST is

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Speaker 1: for those of you guys not familiar with it, Well,

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Speaker 1: FIRST stands for for Inspiration and Recognition as science and technology.

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Speaker 1: It's the world's largest robotics competition for grade school and

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Speaker 1: high school students that we started about twenty years ago

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Speaker 1: by inventor Dean Kaman seen invented the segue. He recently

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Speaker 1: a robotic prosthetic arm. He has four hundred patents for

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Speaker 1: a lot of medical devices, and he got this started

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Speaker 1: with twenty eight high school teams mentored by some local

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Speaker 1: companies UH twenty years ago and this year we have

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Speaker 1: nineteen thousand teams from grade school through high school around

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Speaker 1: the world participating in our robotics competitions. Blake Paul said.

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Speaker 1: High school teams have traveled from all around the world

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Speaker 1: to compete in the championships this weekend. Did you know what

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Speaker 1: what I'm talking about? That one team from the Middle East?

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Speaker 1: I think it was a combination Israeli UM like Palestinian

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Speaker 1: collaboration or something. Yeah. So you can see all these

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Speaker 1: teams cloud in their team shirts and their get ups,

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Speaker 1: and there's an awards for imagery I think, so that

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Speaker 1: kind of explained some of the crazy costumes. And then

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Speaker 1: there was like one team that was just a bunch

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Speaker 1: of robots and they were they had a human child

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Speaker 1: that they were forcing to compete in the really yeah,

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Speaker 1: and everybody's wheeling their robots and trolleys to and fab

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Speaker 1: It's it's pretty cool. Well, hey, let's hear from some

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Speaker 1: of the mini teams that were competing. We're Team thirteen

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Speaker 1: seventy nine, the Gear Devils from North across Georgia and

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Speaker 1: right now we're working on fixing our kicker. Oh. We've

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Speaker 1: been competing for like about eight years and we come

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Speaker 1: to Georgia Dome pretty much every other year. Yeah, they

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Speaker 1: had that awesome Masca at the Blue Devil. I think

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Speaker 1: we'll get a shot of him on the blog if

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Speaker 1: we can which one vil. He's the devil who's blue. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's hear from another team. So we're from San Diego, California.

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Speaker 1: We're a rookie team from Canyon Crest Academy High scho Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I love these guys. The aluminum nar walls and they

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Speaker 1: had to the narwhale helmets on, Like these helmets with

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Speaker 1: these big um it's not a tusk because it wouldn't

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Speaker 1: our walls have I guess it's a tusk unicorn horn

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Speaker 1: tip deal coming out of their heads and you know, yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're a little bit too cool for school. Initially, Remember

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Speaker 1: we had to chase them yeah. Yeah, and then they

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Speaker 1: finally rallied together and shout at their team name into

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Speaker 1: the microphone at the end. Yeah, and they had to

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Speaker 1: get a little bit organized the the that's some of

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Speaker 1: the teams were a little faster on the rally. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: the vibe at first I touched on this earlier, but

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Speaker 1: but it's just it's just awesome because these these kids

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Speaker 1: are running around and just enthusiastic about science and about robotics. Um,

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Speaker 1: the parents and the volunteers, the chaperones, everybody's just like

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Speaker 1: really gung ho um, and and the nerdiness is like

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Speaker 1: right out in the open. Uh, like just unabashed nerdiness

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Speaker 1: and geekiness and just just a love of science. And

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Speaker 1: it's just you know, it's in the air. It's it's infectious. Really.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you just you want to go home and

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Speaker 1: hug your room, but give little games to play in

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Speaker 1: the living room, that's right, that's right. Yeah, And with

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Speaker 1: that vibe, you kind of get excited about the future

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Speaker 1: of robotics here in the United States and globally, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's what it's all about. Yeah. So here's First President

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Speaker 1: Paul Gadonis again talking about how some of the high

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Speaker 1: schoolers involved in First Fair Leader in Life, for example,

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Speaker 1: they're fift more likely to go on to college after

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Speaker 1: they graduate high school. We have twelve million dollars of

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Speaker 1: scholarships open to them to enable them to go on

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Speaker 1: to college. And there are three or four times as

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Speaker 1: likely to study engineering or science than their peers who

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Speaker 1: weren't on a team. And it's not a different group

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Speaker 1: of students. We just had the exposure of being on

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Speaker 1: a first team. And we've got ninety thousand wonderful volunteers,

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Speaker 1: often professional engineers from companies like Cisco and Google and

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Speaker 1: Boeing and IBM and so on, and NASA who inspire

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Speaker 1: these kids, do you ask? Of course, has had a

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Speaker 1: lot of problems getting kids interested in science, technology, engineering,

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Speaker 1: and mathematics, and now we collectively knew these areas of

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Speaker 1: interest a stem right, and the US has launched initiatives

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Speaker 1: like this sum Education Coalition, which is co chaired by

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Speaker 1: folks such as the American Chemical Society and the National

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Speaker 1: Science Teachers Association to change that scenario. So here's Paul

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Speaker 1: talking about why he thinks the US has been struggling

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Speaker 1: with the issue. Well, things have changed. Well since when

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Speaker 1: I was growing up in the sixties. Uh, it was

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Speaker 1: the space race. It felt like a patriotic duty to

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Speaker 1: study math and science to get to the moon first.

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Speaker 1: But today our media tells young people that the way

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Speaker 1: to fame and fortune is to bounce the ball or

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Speaker 1: try to send your way into a Hollywood stage, instead

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Speaker 1: of using your brain to do something useful for our society.

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Speaker 1: And so that's what we're trying to show, that it's

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Speaker 1: cool to be smart. So I'm pretty sure that my

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Speaker 1: high school did not have a robotics team. How about yours?

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Speaker 1: We didn't. Yeah, would you have joined if they were? In?

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Speaker 1: Um see, I don't know, because my my initial reaction

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Speaker 1: would be, like, you know, thinking back to myself in

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Speaker 1: high school, I probably would be a little intimidated. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I wasn't I wasn't that much of a science dork

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Speaker 1: at the time. You're more of an English doork, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm just a dork in general, I guess. But but yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I would have probably thought, hey, I don't really

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Speaker 1: know how robots work, and you know, and and this

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Speaker 1: was you know, this was olden days when they weren't

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Speaker 1: in our living rooms eating dust, so um so yeah,

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Speaker 1: I would have been a little intimidated. But but having

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Speaker 1: gone to the event, I know that it's more of

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Speaker 1: a team type deals and it's not like, you know,

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Speaker 1: they say, all right, welcome to the team, go build

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Speaker 1: a robot they can shoot a basketball. And now it's

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Speaker 1: not quite like that. It's it's hey, we're working together,

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Speaker 1: et cetera. Right, So, about ten percent of US high

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Speaker 1: schools now have a first robotics team, but a lot don't.

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Speaker 1: Here's Paul and my More high schools don't have robotics teams. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's a good question them, after all, they all have

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Speaker 1: a varsity basketball team or varsity football team. I think

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Speaker 1: part of it is just learning that first robotics is

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Speaker 1: out there, you know. So we are expanding the number

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Speaker 1: of teams. We're calling on schools, encouraging principles and teachers

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Speaker 1: to support a team. We're finding more corporate sponsors, companies

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Speaker 1: like Boeing and be A systems in Google who will

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Speaker 1: help fund teams. So I think primarily it's getting the

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Speaker 1: word out so that when we go into a high school,

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Speaker 1: we find that uh, kids sign up when they hear

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Speaker 1: about it because they think it's cool, or even if

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Speaker 1: they don't know about what it is. They get they

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Speaker 1: get started, um and boom they say, hey, this is

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Speaker 1: a lot of fun. And there is also the issue

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Speaker 1: of teacher pay with First right, our teachers getting paid

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Speaker 1: for their efforts. Let's hear from Paul on that to

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Speaker 1: the teacher, I mean, I'd like to see the teachers

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Speaker 1: get rewarded for doing this, uh financially, just like the

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Speaker 1: English teacher who runs the drama club or play or

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Speaker 1: the football coach after school. Uh. So we encourage that

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Speaker 1: among our school teams. But it's not as their teachers

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Speaker 1: are the only adults involved. There are thousands of volunteers

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Speaker 1: helping out, and a lot of them have related expertise

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Speaker 1: that they're more than willing to share. Right. We talked

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Speaker 1: to one of those volunteers, the kilt guy. It was

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Speaker 1: technically what a utility kilt until a kilt I think

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Speaker 1: they call them? Yeah, pretty cool. We talked to him

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Speaker 1: about his volunteering with First and because Robert said, guy

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Speaker 1: wearing a killer is bound to give some good quotes. Um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is a This is a U tailor kilt company

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Speaker 1: based in Seattle, a modernary reinterpretation of the kilt very comfortable.

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Speaker 1: I'm a great supporter of unbifurcated freedom. UM quick shout out,

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Speaker 1: I hope they give you a free one. UM. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So I got involved in First a couple of years ago.

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Speaker 1: My my son was going to high school in Bridgewater, Massachusetts,

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Speaker 1: which had a team called Team at eight T J Squared,

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Speaker 1: which one of the first I don't think they were

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Speaker 1: in the first year of First, but they think they

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Speaker 1: joined him like the second year. It's a very old

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Speaker 1: veteran team. UM. And he he sort of had some

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Speaker 1: interest in robotics and dragged me along to one of

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Speaker 1: the meetings. And I'm a I'm a research engineer, electronics

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Speaker 1: engineer by training, so I got involved. They needed some

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Speaker 1: help with programming electronics. I got involved initially with the team,

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Speaker 1: and I thought I'd give a little bit back by

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Speaker 1: volunteering this year. UM. So we're running the practice field

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Speaker 1: where teams can but basically try out things they can't

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Speaker 1: really try on the field or they need to work

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Speaker 1: on the field. So teams are trying out the autonomous mode,

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Speaker 1: which is the first fifteen seconds of automatic operation. UM.

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Speaker 1: So that typically they need to do some tuning. They

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Speaker 1: might have several ideas, they want to make sure they

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Speaker 1: get the timing rights, etcetera. Um, and then some other

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Speaker 1: teams are trying out modifications and just trying some ideas

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Speaker 1: or different drive approaches, which again it's in a they

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Speaker 1: have a bit more time here and people aren't trying

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Speaker 1: to ram into you and everything, so it's an opportunity

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Speaker 1: to to practice and to sort of, you know, get

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Speaker 1: a get a bit more experienced before you go out

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Speaker 1: into the scary stuff on the main field. I'm a

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Speaker 1: great supporter of unbifurcated food and that that was my

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Speaker 1: best line from the whole first interview, and it didn't

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Speaker 1: even come I'm sorry from you, Paul, that it came

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Speaker 1: from this volunteer. Go was awesome. Yeah, yeah, he u

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Speaker 1: he was. He was quite a character and it was

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Speaker 1: very enthusiastic about the whole of that. So you're probably wanting,

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Speaker 1: how does the high school team make it to the

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Speaker 1: the battle pits the first right? Well, uh, we asked

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Speaker 1: Paul the same thing. Typically in the fall, high school

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Speaker 1: then a few mentors from the local area from engineering

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Speaker 1: professional firms in the area will then form a team

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Speaker 1: and on the first Saturday of January, teams gather all

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Speaker 1: across the country and auditoriums and over the NASA satellite network,

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Speaker 1: we unveil the game. And it's a new game every year. UH.

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Speaker 1: This year is called Breakaway, which is robots playing soccer.

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Speaker 1: It's like soccer on steroids. And now we unveil that

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Speaker 1: game and it's a new game every year because these

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Speaker 1: kids of parts, five motors, gears, software, sensors. The one

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Speaker 1: have six weeks to design, build, test the robot. They

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Speaker 1: have to create it up and then FedEx ships six

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Speaker 1: hundred tons of robots to forty four tournaments around the world,

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Speaker 1: so they're in it. UH these original events in that Atlanta,

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Speaker 1: New York, Houston, Los Angeles, Denver, Seattle, Tel Aviv, Toronto.

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Speaker 1: Uh in teams participate there fifty teams at an event

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Speaker 1: and the winning teams make it here to the Georgia Dolomons.

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Speaker 1: So this is the super Bowl of smarts. So are

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Speaker 1: any of you high schoolers interested in getting involved? Here's

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Speaker 1: Paul and how you can. And in case you're a

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Speaker 1: little nervous about signing up, it's a team thing, like

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Speaker 1: we said before, So no one's gonna expect you to

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Speaker 1: build this robot. I'll buy yourself. I would say, just

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Speaker 1: do it, there's no prerequisites. Uh, just joined a team.

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Speaker 1: I met a couple of high school girls who were

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Speaker 1: how did you get involved? I said, well, our boyfriend

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Speaker 1: signed up for this team. We decided to tag along

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Speaker 1: and someone stuck up power drill in my hand and

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Speaker 1: I'm hooked. And she says, I've been doing this now

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Speaker 1: and I'm gonna head to UH college next year to

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Speaker 1: study mechanical engineering. So again my high school experience, going

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Speaker 1: I remember. It's like football, football, football, and little baseball

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Speaker 1: or softball whatever they play. Um, a little basketball, but

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Speaker 1: mostly it was football. So it's athletics. Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: you had a few little clubs on the side. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And that's actually a huge deal. The whole you know,

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Speaker 1: divide between you know, what are you gonna push the

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Speaker 1: kids to do? What are you gonna, you know, inspire

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Speaker 1: them with the idea of an athletic superstar or you know,

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Speaker 1: a scientist. So we asked Paul about this. Well, I'm

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Speaker 1: pleased to see that more high schools are now awarding

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Speaker 1: a varsity letter in robotics and some teams get sent

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Speaker 1: on their way to the championship with a pep rally

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Speaker 1: uh the day before, which is the right type of

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Speaker 1: value system here, you get what you celebrate. This is

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Speaker 1: what we're celebrating. But I met a young woman who said, uh,

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Speaker 1: she was dropping out of high school uh as a sophomore,

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Speaker 1: and then her guidance counselors stopped her and said, you

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Speaker 1: ought to join this robotics team. And she said, her

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Speaker 1: mother said you have to do this. Uh. And she said, mom,

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Speaker 1: it will be social suicide for me to join his

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Speaker 1: robotics team. And her mother drew credit sated, well, and

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Speaker 1: you can't be a cheerleader anymore. She got on the team, UH,

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Speaker 1: thrived on it. UH. And I saw her she uh

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Speaker 1: now is a mentor of a team because she wanted

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Speaker 1: to get a degree in mechanical engineering. She's got a

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Speaker 1: great job as a design engineer, and she says, I'm

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Speaker 1: now giving back and I think it's the coolest thing

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Speaker 1: I ever did, and it really changed the course of

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Speaker 1: my life. Yeah, speaking of cheerleaders and females, and yeah,

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Speaker 1: of course we know that there are male cheerleaders too.

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Speaker 1: Did you have many male cheerleaders at your school? I

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Speaker 1: don't remember. I don't think we did. Cheerleading was not

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Speaker 1: a big thing in the North Beast where I grew up. O. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so soccer. A lot of people played soccer. A lot

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Speaker 1: of people are persistent about chasing that ball around. So

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Speaker 1: we were wondering what First was doing to attract female

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Speaker 1: students to robotics. And it's a lot. As it turns out,

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Speaker 1: at the high school level, about of our teams are

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Speaker 1: made of females, which is higher than the sence and

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Speaker 1: engineering population in general. So I know we're attracting more

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Speaker 1: girls to the competitions. Uh what We're reaching out with

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Speaker 1: them in a couple of ways. We've made up an

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Speaker 1: alliance with the Girl Scouts, and there's a Girl Scouts

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Speaker 1: patch that you can earn by being on a robotics team.

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Speaker 1: We just formed an alliance with the Society of Women

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Speaker 1: Engineers to have these female professionals serve as mentors for

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Speaker 1: these teams. Uh. And we're also awarding new areas we're entering,

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Speaker 1: like the green field, and so we are creating a

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Speaker 1: green recycling projects, green energy audits as a way to

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Speaker 1: attract more females to do things that they see socially

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Speaker 1: relevant beyond building a robot. And that's working. Obviously, robots

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Speaker 1: continue to just get more and more advanced leading up

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Speaker 1: to the day when they inevitably become self conscious and takeover. Um.

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Speaker 1: We didn't have thought about that though. Some friends of

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Speaker 1: mine were really saying, Hey, ask him, when, what are

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Speaker 1: the chances of robots becoming self aware of this year's

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Speaker 1: first and taking over humanity? Um? And we should ask

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Speaker 1: them about the singularity totally. Yeah, And I figured it's

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Speaker 1: probably like each first, you know, get all the robots

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Speaker 1: together in one room, they're gonna talk, they're gonna organize. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: what goes on after the lights go down in the

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Speaker 1: Church of Dome. I don't know if maybe next year

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Speaker 1: we'll find out. But we asked Paul about about some

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Speaker 1: of the technologies that the bots are showcasing and how

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Speaker 1: that's changed first over the years. Yeah, and what kind

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Speaker 1: of technologies they're gonna adopt for future competitions. Well, we're

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Speaker 1: getting more and more sophisticated. I got this year. There's

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Speaker 1: a versephisticated video camera and Intel help donate Classmate PCs

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Speaker 1: for the driver's station. We're using out WiFi as a

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Speaker 1: means of communicating between the robots. Uh. And so you're

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Speaker 1: gonna see some awesome play out there with robots on

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Speaker 1: their own finding the targets, shooting the balls. In the future,

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Speaker 1: you'll see things like optical character recognition uh and uh

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Speaker 1: even online simulations of what we're doing. So my favorite

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Speaker 1: robot is Maximum Alien from the Black Hole fictional. Uh.

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Speaker 1: So I had to ask Paul what his favorite robot

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Speaker 1: is and he let us know. Well, I saw a

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Speaker 1: robot built by one of the first Robotics team members

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Speaker 1: with the Lego mind Storms robot. You put a scrambled

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Speaker 1: Rubics cube in its arms. The video camera scans it

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Speaker 1: in nine seconds, transmits the data into a laptop where

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Speaker 1: he's programmed an algorithm that solves it in four seconds,

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Speaker 1: and then instructs the arms to unscramble it and solve

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Speaker 1: the entire Rubisque problem in fifty three seconds, and this

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Speaker 1: young man is thirteen years old. That is a cool

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Speaker 1: robot and a pretty cool kid. That's a good answer.

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Speaker 1: I totally saw that video on YouTube with the Rubick's

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Speaker 1: Cube robot, did you. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty amazing. I

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Speaker 1: mean it's no you know, kill a red robot at

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Speaker 1: this rating, Anthony Perkins. But it's pretty good. So that

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Speaker 1: wraps it up for first Stuff from the Science Lab

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Speaker 1: road trip. We hope you guys enjoyed it. And as always,

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Speaker 1: you can type robots or robot into the search bar

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Speaker 1: and how Stuff works homepage and see what good stuff

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Speaker 1: that brings up. We've got things about robot armies, robots

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Speaker 1: getting married, robots becoming self aware and taking over the world. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we just every news you wrote about robots being alive. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I like that article. I thought it. Let's give on

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Speaker 1: And of course we're getting more technologically advanced to you.

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Speaker 1: And we're on Twitter now, so follow us on Twitter

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Speaker 1: with Lab stuff and look us up on Facebook as well.

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Speaker 1: We're on their stuff from the Science Lab. Just put

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Speaker 1: that into the bar and search for it, and you

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Speaker 1: can always shoot us an email at Science Stuff at

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you

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Speaker 1: think of the podcast, if you have any suggestions for

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Speaker 1: future episodes, and let us know about your relationship with

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Speaker 1: with robots if you are, especially if you're a member

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Speaker 1: of robotics team or volunteer with one you know, let

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Speaker 1: us know about your experiences. We'd love to hear from

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Speaker 1: you for moral this and thousands of other topics. Is

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Speaker 1: that how stuff works dot com. Want more house stuff works,

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