[Applause]
as a kid I love the books of Jules Verne
and the movies of Jacques Cousteau now
some years later after I learned how to
make and make robots and code their
brains I met another student who also
loved the books of children and the
movies of Jacques Cousteau and we
decided to make a robot together our
version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
we call this robot amour which stood for
autonomous modular optical underwater
robot but the Seurat was really about
love
I’m more moved beautiful in water like
an underwater helicopter
it took beautiful pictures and it could
transmit video right to your desktop
all of this enabled by some very
innovative ideas now one hot hot hot
summer day off the coast of Singapore we
decided to see just how fast this robot
could go we were feeling very confident
that day and we took down several of the
safety features of this robot to give it
more juice and then after robot went so
I should tell you that it had taken us
three years to build this robot and it
was our only unit so we waited and
waited and waited but amore did not come
back we lost amore and we were
devastated now the thing about science
is that the first instance of an
invention takes a long time to make but
subsequent copies are easier because
they benefit from prior knowledge and it
is also true that great failures teach
great lessons so we went back to the lab
we worked hard we wrote some code and
after 60 days or so we had three copies
of an improved amore and we took these
robots to the water and as we watch them
make flips we started thinking that we
really wanted more
and we started wondering what would the
children of a more looked like stronger
smoother softer well meets our robot
fish an underwater robot that can change
the swimming direction in 100
milliseconds which is on par with real
fish this is because these robots are
fitter are soft and they have dynamic
tails and with fish it is called the
escape maneuver because it allows fish
to escape from bigger fish who want to
eat them so we took this robot to the
ocean there it is with its one big black
eye and there’s me right next to it we
swam the with the robot we watched it
glide elegantly by beautiful coral reefs
it’s all fish beautiful fish with its
monocular vision and it even found Nemo
so it took us three years to make a more
three months to make three copies of a
more and today we can make the soft
robot fish in the lab in a few hours
this change of pace may sound familiar
to you because just two decades ago
computation was a task reserved for the
few computers were large and expensive
and hard to access you really knew you
had to know what to do with them but all
that changed and today everyone computes
because we all have smartphones in fact
computation is so normal we don’t even
notice how much we depend on it and this
raises an interesting question in this
world so changed by computation that
helps us with thinking work what might
it look like with robots that can help
us with physical work how much more
could we our flow to machines autonomous
driving will absolutely eliminate road
fatalities it will give our parents
greater independence and quality of life
in their retirement and it will give all
of us the ability to go anywhere anytime
it
is not a matter of if it is a matter of
when imagine heading home from work in
your autonomous car knowing that it has
the smarts to keep you safe and to make
it fun you stop at the grocery store to
pick up supplies for dinner you hand
your dinner menu to a robot at the door
the robot connects to your home figures
out which items you’re missing and a few
minutes later another robot hands you a
box you get home you pass the Box to
kitchen robot and then you’ll even let
your children help with dinner because
you know that your vacuum cleaning robot
will sweep up their mess now I know what
you’re thinking you’re thinking that
this sounds like one of those cartoons
about the future that never comes to
pass but in fact the future is really
not that far off today’s robots are
already our partners in domestic and
industrial settings they work side by
side with surgeons in operating rooms
and with workers in factories they mow
our lawns they vacuum clean our floors
they even milk our cows and I believe
that in a few years they will touch many
more aspects of our lives but to get
there we need to solve a challenge today
making and using robots is reserved for
the few because it requires expertise
that most people don’t have and
specifically a robot is made of a body
and the brain and feel must have the
skills to make the body and coat the
brain while there are tools available to
help us with coding we don’t have tools
available to help us with making and
this has to change now for this change
we need to do three things we need to
advance the science of autonomy we need
to engineer tools that will help us with
making and we need to educate the young
generation our children our students in
computational thinking and computational
making because only because only then
they will be prepared for a future with
machines integrated into the fabric of
life
so let me start with a science in nature
organisms are made out of cells that
combine to make say a snake or an ant
can we imagine creating robotic cells
that would compose to make different
shape robots the best shapes suited for
the task at hand maybe a snake robot to
cross through a tunnel or a three handed
manipulator for the factory floor
we can even imbue these robots with the
ability to make themselves so let’s say
your robot needs to access something
that’s high on a shelf well the robot
could reshuffle the cells to grow a long
arm to reach on the shelf so that’s the
idea when the task changes the box the
body can change – here is a simulation
of a robot we call the dog couch because
it transforms a dog into a couch and
what you see here is the computational
substrate the algorithms the brain of
this robot that tells each cell what to
do now we know how to code these brains
but we do not know how to make the unit
cell at a scale that is comfortable at
the scale that would result in a
comfortable thing to sit on are you
asking yourselves why would we need a
dog couch ok this is my daughter Jackie
when she was five she told me when I
can’t sleep at night I sit around and
wish that I could pull toys in and out
of the walls
or even better cookies well if we had
the dog couch we would have the tools to
make Jackie her wall and actually I have
worked with hundreds of children the
thing I love about them is that there
are no rules that limits their
imagination now what if I told you that
in the future I could hand you a bag
that has any tool you want in it so in
this conceptualization I have a bag of
smarts name that will make a copy of a
range for you and when you’re done with
it you could return the wrench back to
the bag and the particles could be
reused for a different task today we do
not have robot
particles that can create the dark ouch
but even at the larger scale that we
have today we can do some interesting
things for instance we can make
self-configuring trusses and support
beams and this is an example using our
robot called M block which is about a 2
by 2 cube that moves by pivoting and the
secret behind movement is a flywheel
inside the robot that spins very fast
and then there is a braking mechanism
that suddenly stops the motion and the
momentum propels the cube forward we
call it M blocks because when we watch
these robots it seems to us that they
move as though by magic since there are
no external moving parts now to get from
M blocks which is where we are today to
a world where we can have comfortable
dog couches we have to make these
modules smaller and software we have to
bring machines and materials closer
together we have to advance the science
of making which we are but while we’re
doing this we are also pursuing an
alternative option we are inspired by
engineering to create tools that will
automate design and also fabrication if
we had tools that would enable anybody
to design and fab objects we could have
a world where you can make a robot on
demand for any task so here’s Alice we
would love to automate many tasks in
Alice’s home let’s say Alice wants a
robot to play with her cat so Alice
could head to a store called 24-hour
robot manufacturing where she could
explore the design space using an
intuitive interface when she selects the
final design the store prints the robot
the cost is affordable and the cat has a
playmate when Alice is at work 24 hour
robot manufacturing does not quite exist
today but it’s coming today the making
tools are lacking if we can automate the
design and the fabrication of machines
we will get closer to a point where any
one of us could make machines on demand
let’s say Alice might like a robot to
play chess with her what can the state
of the Arts today do well a program
could look at this requirement and
identify what are the behaviors of this
robot pick up a piece move it from here
to there do not bump into other pieces
once you have behaviors another program
could synthesize mechanisms that can
implement those behaviors generate some
design files assemble the components and
here is the robot that plays chess with
you now this robot was designed flat and
it was folded following the principles
of origami this is why we call this
approach to fabrication origami robots
now this particular robot was fabricated
manually but we also have tools that
enable us to create robots that make
themselves so here’s the robot we call
the mini bot it starts at a flat as a
flat piece of plastic and when you put
it on a heating pad it grows into a
full-fledged robot that can run at 4
body lengths a second it avoids
obstacles it can push things around it
can carry things it can crawl on your
body it can even walk on water and when
you’re done with it you can send this
robot to recycling bin where it could
dissolve to reuse the components so I
don’t know if you’re aware but every
year we generate 50 million tons of
waste and electronics are particularly
problematic because they cannot be
recycled and they are toxic when we
deposit them in developing world
countries with this approach to making
machines we will not generate electronic
waste now we have tools for making these
robots at large scales but even at these
small scales they can do amazing things
to contribute to our lives and one
option we’re investigating is the
possibility of using these robots as
many surgeons that you could swallow
they could perform some action in
badi a procedure and when they’re done
with a procedure they could be dissolved
or eliminated imagine surgery without
incisions without pain and without the
risk of infection the particular case
study were looking at is helping
eliminate button batteries that people
accidentally swallow so every year in
the United States 3500 people swallow
button batteries and this is dangerous
because button batteries cause holes in
the tissue in fact very fast within an
hour so here’s how the mini bot can help
you can package it in an ice pill
swallow it when it gets to the stomach
the ice melts the robot deploys and with
the use of a magnet embedded in the
robot we can pick up the battery and
eliminate it through the digestive
system and here is an example of how
this would work in an artificial stomach
there is our I spill it gets controlled
with an external magnetic field much
like an MRI machine it connects to the
battery it pulls it out and now the
battery can be guided out at this point
a second robot could arrive to patch the
wound and deliver medicine at the
location of the wound so these
technologies can really do so many
things they can remove foreign objects
they can patch wounds they can deliver
medicine they can take tissue samples
they can give us pictures of what our
the insides of our bodies look like so
we are advancing the science and we’re
advancing the engineering and these are
allowing us to begin to dream about a
future where we can make robots for any
tasks but this requires that we know how
to code and how to make and the way I
see it those of us who know how to make
things and then code them have
superpowers because we can imagine
anything and we can just make it and we
would love to give our children the
ability to have superpowers the ability
to turn their in
imagination into anything they want so
to do so we have to teach them
computational thinking and computational
making and this is really important I’m
not sure you’re aware but right now in
our country 6,000 students drop out of
school every day it’s really a serious
problem and to address it we could make
education more interesting and more
active more engaged robots are magnetic
to children in fact children love robots
because they get empowered at a time
when they feel that the whole rest of
the world controls them so to help with
this vision of robots for education we
have created a new education platform we
call the robot garden this platform was
created with the same tools we use to
make origami robots and this garden has
hundreds of robot flowers robots sheep
and even robot ducks in it children
learn making by building the garden and
the garden can also be used to teach
computational thinking and here’s an
example where the garden teaches a
particular type of algorithm called
breadth-first search here each robot is
the vertex in a graph and the color
denotes different stages of this
breadth-first search algorithm watching
the garden is learning the algorithm so
we are developing the science of
autonomy we’re developing engineering
tools for coding we’re developing
education tools for children how might
this help us with the future with robots
well the way I see it today if you can
think it you can write it you can put it
on paper because it is part of literacy
now imagine a world where if you can
think it you can make it a world where
Jackie could build her wall that stores
toys and another little girl who loves
Jules Verne and Jacques Cousteau could
create her own version of
the underwater explorer all of us can
get superpowers by learning
computational thinking and computational
making each one of us can use our
talents our skills our creativity our
problem-solving skills to dream up new
machines that can save lives improve
lives help us go where we cannot
physically go entertain us help us with
physical tasks and so much more and we
could even exchange our creations much
like we exchange computation on the app
store in a future with robots with
democratized access to robots the
possibilities are endless and that
future is not that far off and now I
would like to leave you with a picture
of all the students in my lab who have
the superpowers to create the videos you
have seen
[Applause]
as a kid I love the books of Jules Verne
and the movies of Jacques Cousteau now
some years later after I learned how to
make and make robots and code their
brains I met another student who also
loved the books of children and the
movies of Jacques Cousteau and we
decided to make a robot together our
version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
we call this robot amour which stood for
autonomous modular optical underwater
robot but the Seurat was really about
love
I’m more moved beautiful in water like
an underwater helicopter
it took beautiful pictures and it could
transmit video right to your desktop
all of this enabled by some very
innovative ideas now one hot hot hot
summer day off the coast of Singapore we
decided to see just how fast this robot
could go we were feeling very confident
that day and we took down several of the
safety features of this robot to give it
more juice and then after robot went so
I should tell you that it had taken us
three years to build this robot and it
was our only unit so we waited and
waited and waited but amore did not come
back we lost amore and we were
devastated now the thing about science
is that the first instance of an
invention takes a long time to make but
subsequent copies are easier because
they benefit from prior knowledge and it
is also true that great failures teach
great lessons so we went back to the lab
we worked hard we wrote some code and
after 60 days or so we had three copies
of an improved amore and we took these
robots to the water and as we watch them
make flips we started thinking that we
really wanted more
and we started wondering what would the
children of a more looked like stronger
smoother softer well meets our robot
fish an underwater robot that can change
the swimming direction in 100
milliseconds which is on par with real
fish this is because these robots are
fitter are soft and they have dynamic
tails and with fish it is called the
escape maneuver because it allows fish
to escape from bigger fish who want to
eat them so we took this robot to the
ocean there it is with its one big black
eye and there’s me right next to it we
swam the with the robot we watched it
glide elegantly by beautiful coral reefs
it’s all fish beautiful fish with its
monocular vision and it even found Nemo
so it took us three years to make a more
three months to make three copies of a
more and today we can make the soft
robot fish in the lab in a few hours
this change of pace may sound familiar
to you because just two decades ago
computation was a task reserved for the
few computers were large and expensive
and hard to access you really knew you
had to know what to do with them but all
that changed and today everyone computes
because we all have smartphones in fact
computation is so normal we don’t even
notice how much we depend on it and this
raises an interesting question in this
world so changed by computation that
helps us with thinking work what might
it look like with robots that can help
us with physical work how much more
could we our flow to machines autonomous
driving will absolutely eliminate road
fatalities it will give our parents
greater independence and quality of life
in their retirement and it will give all
of us the ability to go anywhere anytime
it
is not a matter of if it is a matter of
when imagine heading home from work in
your autonomous car knowing that it has
the smarts to keep you safe and to make
it fun you stop at the grocery store to
pick up supplies for dinner you hand
your dinner menu to a robot at the door
the robot connects to your home figures
out which items you’re missing and a few
minutes later another robot hands you a
box you get home you pass the Box to
kitchen robot and then you’ll even let
your children help with dinner because
you know that your vacuum cleaning robot
will sweep up their mess now I know what
you’re thinking you’re thinking that
this sounds like one of those cartoons
about the future that never comes to
pass but in fact the future is really
not that far off today’s robots are
already our partners in domestic and
industrial settings they work side by
side with surgeons in operating rooms
and with workers in factories they mow
our lawns they vacuum clean our floors
they even milk our cows and I believe
that in a few years they will touch many
more aspects of our lives but to get
there we need to solve a challenge today
making and using robots is reserved for
the few because it requires expertise
that most people don’t have and
specifically a robot is made of a body
and the brain and feel must have the
skills to make the body and coat the
brain while there are tools available to
help us with coding we don’t have tools
available to help us with making and
this has to change now for this change
we need to do three things we need to
advance the science of autonomy we need
to engineer tools that will help us with
making and we need to educate the young
generation our children our students in
computational thinking and computational
making because only because only then
they will be prepared for a future with
machines integrated into the fabric of
life
so let me start with a science in nature
organisms are made out of cells that
combine to make say a snake or an ant
can we imagine creating robotic cells
that would compose to make different
shape robots the best shapes suited for
the task at hand maybe a snake robot to
cross through a tunnel or a three handed
manipulator for the factory floor
we can even imbue these robots with the
ability to make themselves so let’s say
your robot needs to access something
that’s high on a shelf well the robot
could reshuffle the cells to grow a long
arm to reach on the shelf so that’s the
idea when the task changes the box the
body can change – here is a simulation
of a robot we call the dog couch because
it transforms a dog into a couch and
what you see here is the computational
substrate the algorithms the brain of
this robot that tells each cell what to
do now we know how to code these brains
but we do not know how to make the unit
cell at a scale that is comfortable at
the scale that would result in a
comfortable thing to sit on are you
asking yourselves why would we need a
dog couch ok this is my daughter Jackie
when she was five she told me when I
can’t sleep at night I sit around and
wish that I could pull toys in and out
of the walls
or even better cookies well if we had
the dog couch we would have the tools to
make Jackie her wall and actually I have
worked with hundreds of children the
thing I love about them is that there
are no rules that limits their
imagination now what if I told you that
in the future I could hand you a bag
that has any tool you want in it so in
this conceptualization I have a bag of
smarts name that will make a copy of a
range for you and when you’re done with
it you could return the wrench back to
the bag and the particles could be
reused for a different task today we do
not have robot
particles that can create the dark ouch
but even at the larger scale that we
have today we can do some interesting
things for instance we can make
self-configuring trusses and support
beams and this is an example using our
robot called M block which is about a 2
by 2 cube that moves by pivoting and the
secret behind movement is a flywheel
inside the robot that spins very fast
and then there is a braking mechanism
that suddenly stops the motion and the
momentum propels the cube forward we
call it M blocks because when we watch
these robots it seems to us that they
move as though by magic since there are
no external moving parts now to get from
M blocks which is where we are today to
a world where we can have comfortable
dog couches we have to make these
modules smaller and software we have to
bring machines and materials closer
together we have to advance the science
of making which we are but while we’re
doing this we are also pursuing an
alternative option we are inspired by
engineering to create tools that will
automate design and also fabrication if
we had tools that would enable anybody
to design and fab objects we could have
a world where you can make a robot on
demand for any task so here’s Alice we
would love to automate many tasks in
Alice’s home let’s say Alice wants a
robot to play with her cat so Alice
could head to a store called 24-hour
robot manufacturing where she could
explore the design space using an
intuitive interface when she selects the
final design the store prints the robot
the cost is affordable and the cat has a
playmate when Alice is at work 24 hour
robot manufacturing does not quite exist
today but it’s coming today the making
tools are lacking if we can automate the
design and the fabrication of machines
we will get closer to a point where any
one of us could make machines on demand
let’s say Alice might like a robot to
play chess with her what can the state
of the Arts today do well a program
could look at this requirement and
identify what are the behaviors of this
robot pick up a piece move it from here
to there do not bump into other pieces
once you have behaviors another program
could synthesize mechanisms that can
implement those behaviors generate some
design files assemble the components and
here is the robot that plays chess with
you now this robot was designed flat and
it was folded following the principles
of origami this is why we call this
approach to fabrication origami robots
now this particular robot was fabricated
manually but we also have tools that
enable us to create robots that make
themselves so here’s the robot we call
the mini bot it starts at a flat as a
flat piece of plastic and when you put
it on a heating pad it grows into a
full-fledged robot that can run at 4
body lengths a second it avoids
obstacles it can push things around it
can carry things it can crawl on your
body it can even walk on water and when
you’re done with it you can send this
robot to recycling bin where it could
dissolve to reuse the components so I
don’t know if you’re aware but every
year we generate 50 million tons of
waste and electronics are particularly
problematic because they cannot be
recycled and they are toxic when we
deposit them in developing world
countries with this approach to making
machines we will not generate electronic
waste now we have tools for making these
robots at large scales but even at these
small scales they can do amazing things
to contribute to our lives and one
option we’re investigating is the
possibility of using these robots as
many surgeons that you could swallow
they could perform some action in
badi a procedure and when they’re done
with a procedure they could be dissolved
or eliminated imagine surgery without
incisions without pain and without the
risk of infection the particular case
study were looking at is helping
eliminate button batteries that people
accidentally swallow so every year in
the United States 3500 people swallow
button batteries and this is dangerous
because button batteries cause holes in
the tissue in fact very fast within an
hour so here’s how the mini bot can help
you can package it in an ice pill
swallow it when it gets to the stomach
the ice melts the robot deploys and with
the use of a magnet embedded in the
robot we can pick up the battery and
eliminate it through the digestive
system and here is an example of how
this would work in an artificial stomach
there is our I spill it gets controlled
with an external magnetic field much
like an MRI machine it connects to the
battery it pulls it out and now the
battery can be guided out at this point
a second robot could arrive to patch the
wound and deliver medicine at the
location of the wound so these
technologies can really do so many
things they can remove foreign objects
they can patch wounds they can deliver
medicine they can take tissue samples
they can give us pictures of what our
the insides of our bodies look like so
we are advancing the science and we’re
advancing the engineering and these are
allowing us to begin to dream about a
future where we can make robots for any
tasks but this requires that we know how
to code and how to make and the way I
see it those of us who know how to make
things and then code them have
superpowers because we can imagine
anything and we can just make it and we
would love to give our children the
ability to have superpowers the ability
to turn their in
imagination into anything they want so
to do so we have to teach them
computational thinking and computational
making and this is really important I’m
not sure you’re aware but right now in
our country 6,000 students drop out of
school every day it’s really a serious
problem and to address it we could make
education more interesting and more
active more engaged robots are magnetic
to children in fact children love robots
because they get empowered at a time
when they feel that the whole rest of
the world controls them so to help with
this vision of robots for education we
have created a new education platform we
call the robot garden this platform was
created with the same tools we use to
make origami robots and this garden has
hundreds of robot flowers robots sheep
and even robot ducks in it children
learn making by building the garden and
the garden can also be used to teach
computational thinking and here’s an
example where the garden teaches a
particular type of algorithm called
breadth-first search here each robot is
the vertex in a graph and the color
denotes different stages of this
breadth-first search algorithm watching
the garden is learning the algorithm so
we are developing the science of
autonomy we’re developing engineering
tools for coding we’re developing
education tools for children how might
this help us with the future with robots
well the way I see it today if you can
think it you can write it you can put it
on paper because it is part of literacy
now imagine a world where if you can
think it you can make it a world where
Jackie could build her wall that stores
toys and another little girl who loves
Jules Verne and Jacques Cousteau could
create her own version of
the underwater explorer all of us can
get superpowers by learning
computational thinking and computational
making each one of us can use our
talents our skills our creativity our
problem-solving skills to dream up new
machines that can save lives improve
lives help us go where we cannot
physically go entertain us help us with
physical tasks and so much more and we
could even exchange our creations much
like we exchange computation on the app
store in a future with robots with
democratized access to robots the
possibilities are endless and that
future is not that far off and now I
would like to leave you with a picture
of all the students in my lab who have
the superpowers to create the videos you
have seen
[Applause]
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