Ladies and gentlemen this is the Olympics of Robotics!
31 nations are represented here this week.
Over a thousand teams.
When people talk about skills and they talk about the skills that are needed
for the future, they are almost always wrong,
because we never know what kind of jobs are going to be emerging, are going to be created
with these new combinations of man-machine working together. We do know that you have to know math
and some STEM skills.
Hi, I'm Dennis. You are?
Julian.
Julian. So Julian, Alex, Parker and Evan. Ok!
So here's the bottom line - we're Toyota. We work hard to make the best cars in the world.
We don't want second-best or third-best. The best cars in the world are made by the most talented people
in the world, and that's why we look for people like you.
Here's my question - is everybody building the same robot or are the designs
completely what your team comes up?
So this is your unique robot and your unique design?
Yep!
Got it!
So you guys gonna take me around and show me?
Yeah, we are actually doing a practice match right here.
Okay.
Red Lions - are you guys ready?
Blue lions - you guys ready?
This is match number 19 in three, two, one, go!
Here we go! Nothing but net.
We have a dead robot on field one so work those bugs so we have a smooth running tournament the rest of the weekend, ok?
This battery here that goes and powers the frame is loose so its coming unplugged and
we're not able to, you know, we're not able to drive at all cause it doesn't have power.
so we're gonna have to do some work with that and see if we can get that fixed.
Well they really think about stuff - troubleshooting, engineering, mechanical advantages.
When you've been working on this and putting all your time, do you do it during school or do you do it after school?
You do it after school.
We're able to utilize our schools facilities.
We're there for I'd say an average of two hours.
Pretty much every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday since August.
In almost every competition we'll have, we all go over to somebody's house the night
before that Friday night and we'll just work on it all night long until that next day.
I've always had a philosophy that's don't come to me with a problem
unless you have a couple of solutions and now they think that way.
No matter what they do - engineering, medicine - problem-solving is the key.
So it doesn't matter what field they go into problem-solving will be with them the rest of their lives.
Beginning of this year, well I'm gonna be blunt, we sucked. And we lost miserably like two or three
competitions in a row and then we just, ya know, you learn from that and learn how to problem solve around that.
Test and retest and redesign. It got us here so...
You guys are making choices in what you do, and when you make the choice to do this
that tells me a lot about commitment, it tells me a lot about interest, it tells me a lot about work ethic,
and you're making some decisions and judgments that other students aren't doing,
and that gets our attention, right?
He definitely wants to go into engineering. Of course, I'd love to see him go to Toyota
just because he'd stay close by but you know he keeps talking about aeronautical
engineering and different fields, so that's...
When he was a little kid he was always working with Legos and putting them together, and he actually
followed the instructions and knew what to do at an early age, so that just stayed with him.
The ports in the brain that hold these leads had just been overused and they were
stretched out so this wasn't making contact, so we kind of pried open these leads for
their wider and they fit in there better.
And we're good. Let's do another match.
In three, two, one, go!
Five point score right there by blue. Very well done. Remember they got to make up the scoring.
four seconds left...three, two, one.
33's in the push. Here come the results at 32 up on the big board - 185 to 158.
Red over blue. Very, very well done.
Yeah, we won a match.
I want to go into aerospace engineering so I plan to go to UK and double major in computer engineering
and mechanical engineering and then get my aerospace certification,
and then go from there.
I just got accepted to the Governor's Scholar Program here in Kentucky so that's my full scholarship for UK.
With those kind of opportunities you really can accomplish whatever you want to.