Five years after families crowded around their pre-HD TV sets to witness the first live images to arrive from the surface of another planet, the lovable mobile science platforms designed on a relative shoestring continue to roll forward.
Hopefully, the violent Martian winds will favor Spirit and Opportunity by cleaning their solar panels long enough for 2011’s Mars Science Laboratory to arrive. Even if they don’t, an important precedent has been set: robotics work, even in harsh environments. And with good design and a little luck, they work fantastically well.
Perhaps this space exploration success has colored the 2009 FIRST robotics competition, established by Dean Kamen more than a decade before the Mars rovers rolled off the lander petals. (The event’s website is at http://www.usfirst.org/ but it was inaccessible this morning). In celebrating the 40th anniversary of the moon landings, FIRST has simulated a lunar landscape for its competition arena, adding a major complicating factor for the approximately 1,700 nascent robotics experts who will vie for the top prize. One of these kids might one day design a propulsion unit for a submersible on Titan. Or the first probe to descend into the atmosphere of a gas giant.
In writing for a small newspaper about local high schools participating in this contest, I was struck by the regimentation necessary to accomplish the FIRST missions, which resemble a cross between American Gladiators and a chess match. The project transcends the classroom: teamwork is necessary for students asked to work on a months-long project. That’s a long time for young people unaccustomed to thinking beyond tomorrow.
The program also shines a light on the real world. Many of these kids are out working at corporations who volunteer their resources and workspace. They learn that computer chips are useful for more than just game consoles, and get empirical feedback for solutions, whether bad or good. They also get advice from working professionals and experience the office park and laboratory long before they land there with resumes.
Unless Dean Kamen’s Stirling engine prototypes really take off, there’s good reason to point to FIRST as his greatest accomplishment. With the success of the Martian rovers, the kids already know how far robotics can take them. With motivation and tools they will create future vanguards of planetary rovers.
