01x18 - Genius Gitanjali

[bunniefuu]

[narrator] At Marvel,
our stories and our superheroes

are inspired by real-life heroes.

So the editors of some
of our best-known comics

have come together
to work on a special project:

to find and tell the stories
of kids doing the extraordinary,

helping communities near and far,
and changing the world.

These are the kids who will inspire
our stories for years to come.

[Gitanjali]
When I heard about the water crisis,

that's when I was, "What am I gonna do
to help the people of Flint?"

It gives you the results of your water,
which right now, is safe.

And it's our job to help others in need.

[narrator] Gitanjali is already a hero.

Now, we bring her story to the world
with the surprise of a lifetime:

making her into a Marvel superhero,

immortalized in her very own comic,
as a member of Marvel's Hero Project.

They're everyday kids...

Who have accomplished the amazing.

Now, their true stories...

will reveal the heroes that live among us.

This is Marvel's Hero Project.

Gitanjali's story
just has Marvel at its heart.

We talk about our heroes in the way that
they look outside their window

and help the world.

Gitanjali is a perfect example of that,

because she sees this news report
about the water crisis in Flint.

And she uses that as inspiration
to create something

that will help future towns discover
when they have contaminated water.

There's also something so simplistic about
the way that she builds her devices too.

Like, it really reminds me of Moon Girl,
'cause Moon Girl's just this young--

-Just uses what she has.
-Uses what she has around her.

And she builds these,
like, this really cool tech,

and is also super positive and is, like,
"I can fix all of the problems."

And where Moon Girl has Devil Dinosaur,
Gitanjali has her brother.

-Yes. [chuckles]
-Yeah! Oh, her brother's so cute!

That's what's fascinating about Gitanjali

is the fact that she doesn't
just stop there, right?

She sees other problems and she's, like,
"Oh, I'm gonna try to fix that."

-And it's all through science.
-[Sana] Yeah.

It's all through science,

which of course,
is very reminiscent of, you know,

one of the biggest Marvel heroes ever,
which is Tony Stark, right?

-I'm not familiar with him.
-You're not familiar with him?

Let me tell you the story
about Tony Stark.

My favorite thing about Gitanjali
is that she is also trying to inspire

other female scientists.

-Yes.
-Yeah.

We have one of our heroes,
Wasp, Nadia van Dyne.

She has a group of female scientists,

the Agents of G.I.R.L.
that she brings together.

-Coolest name.
-She's, like,

you know, we need to encourage girls
to do science, you know?

And so she just brings all the best minds
she can find together

to help solve problems.

I think she fits in perfectly
with the Marvel Universe.

-Yeah.
-I think she's gonna be a great member

of the Hero Project.

[students chattering]

Ripped it off with your mouth.

-Seriously?
-No. But it sounds like--

You know what the plural of LEGOs,
LEGO is?

-LEGI.
-LEGO.

-"LEGI."
-LEGI.

I'm playing with LEGO today.

-But it's fake. Really?
-Well, those, like--

[Gitanjali] Every day when we come home
from school, when we have dinner,

my dad'll be, like,
"Did you behave well?"

And we'd be, like, "Yes."

"Did you work hard,
or did you hardly work?"

I'd be, like, "Work hard."

And then he'd ask me if I'd helped others,
then I'd say, "Yes."

I mix it.

Am I doing it right?

Yes. Slowly.

Does this go in the tea or what?

It goes in the cookie.

-Oh. [chuckles]
-[woman chuckles]

I would call myself curious, I would say.
I ask way too many questions.

I'm always curious about everything.
And I make sure that I get all my answers.

-[woman] Who wants to start the oven?
-Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!

She would ask us what virtual reality is

or what nanotechnology
or what electromagnetism was.

She'll ask a lot of questions.

-A cardon sens--
-Car--

-Carbon nanotube.
-Yeah, that's it.

And it has a blue...

-Tooth.
-Yep.

-[Bharathi chuckles]
-A Bluetooth.

[Bharathi] So when we went to India
the first time,

she would ask a lot of questions
about water in general.

"Why would people boil water twice?

Why is it that there are no filters
in every home?"

Water was in her head somewhere and it
showed up at a very later point in time.

[Gitanjali] It was three to four years ago
when I heard about the water crisis

going on in Flint.

There's a city called Flint

where so many people
are drinking lead-contaminated water.

And I'm, like,
"What's lead? What's Flint?

What's this? What's that?"

Her first question was, "Does nobody know
how to remove the lead out of water?"

And then we gave her more details
about how the water source was changed

and how it's not a simple problem
by just removing lead.

[man] There are babies that are sick

that will have to deal with illnesses
for the rest of their life.

[people] Spread the word! Clean our water!

[Gitanjali] Even without being
in their shoes, I was just upset.

But, like, being in their shoes,
I would be angry. I would be mad.

Water's a basic right that everybody has,

and it seems unfair that some people
don't get clean water to drink.

And so then I was, like... "No."

"So what am I gonna to do
to help the people of Flint?"

So I got out my little notebook,
and I started writing ideas.

I think my first one was, like,
"Create a house on a different planet,"

[chuckling] or something like that.

And then once I was, like,
"Let's create a lead-detection tool."

These people in Flint,
they need something like this.

And there's places around the world
who need something like this.

I would just feel so guilty
if I didn't solve this problem.

I heard about an article on MIT's paper,

where they were using
carbon nanotube sensors

to detect hazardous gases in the air.

And I was, like,
"Oh, so carbon nanotube sensors for air.

What about carbon nanotube sensors
for water?"

And so I tried putting those things
together and I'm, like, this could work.

So these are all my versions of Tethys.

This is the first one.

You dip this cartridge into the water
you want to test,

and the carbon nanotube sensor
measures the lead in the water.

The carbon nanotube sensor
is pretty much like this.

And I embedded it with chloride ions

which are some of the green ones
over here.

The lead in the water sticks
to the chloride ions

and it forms almost, like, speed bumps.

So I know the more resistance
there is in the circuit,

that means that there's more lead.

And then after that,
you set the device away.

In the beginning,
there were a lot of struggles.

Definitely the first thing
was trying to find a lab space.

I tried going outside to my backyard

to use lead and carbon nanotubes
and chloride and dangerous things.

My mom said no.

[Bharathi] "Anjali,
you cannot do it in your backyard.

You have to find a safe lab space."

She said,
"Oh, where would I get a lab space?"

And we said, "We don't know.
You will have to find out."

It was up to, like, hundreds of e-mails
and calls by the end of that year.

And, um, no one said yes.

What is wrong with this?

Okay, I'm gonna upload the code
back into the device.

My original device,
my brother stepped on it. [chuckles]

And it just crumbled and, like,
the circuitry was destroyed.

What is this?

And sometimes I got, like, in water,

when it didn't have
a waterproof case on it.

That was destroyed.

Sometimes I wanna throw it out the window.

When she came to me last year,
she just told me about her project.

And I was so excited to just hear.

She came to me next week
with some wires in her hands.

And I was, like, "Okay, what is this?"

[Gitanjali] She tells me things I can
improve on and things I can fix.

At the end of it,

I'd, like, completely deconstructed
my device in front of her face.

Ten turns. Eleven times.
Twelve times. We failed a lot.

Really. I've tried, tried, tried, tried,
tried, tried, tried, tried,

tried, again, and it's not working.

You click "check lead."

I broke it again.

[grunts] Okay.

And then I'll understand
what the problem is,

and I'll be like,
"Oh! Okay, we'll fix that."

And then you click "check status" and
it gives you the results of your water,

which right now is safe.

And I'm so excited.
You don't even know how excited I am.

She hugged me so tight,
and I was like, "Oh, my God."

Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! I got it to work.

[sighing] Ah!

T-E-T-H-Y-S. [chuckles]

Then she said,
"I don't want to stop here."

I was like,
"I don't want you to stop here."

[Simi] So she went for the competition.

[man] Our next young scientist

for the Discovery Education
3M Young Scientist Challenge,

-let's give a warm welcome to Gitanjali.
-[audience applauds]

I ended up going to Minnesota
to the competition.

I believe that each and every one of us
have the right to know our water quality

and Tethys can help with that. Thank you.

[audience applauds]

I was so hoping
and literally I was praying for her.

So, and she won, and I was in tears.

When I saw her on TV,
I was literally in tears.

[cheering, applauding]

[woman] It's incredible.
I hear you wanna go to MIT.

Yes. I do wanna go to MIT.

I have a feeling
you have a really good shot.

-Yeah.
-[audience laughs]

We should aspire to solve bigger problems.

I'm Gitanjali Rao. I'm 12 years old,

and I love finding solutions
to real-world problems.

Oh, hi!

-Hey, how are you?
-Good. How are you?

-Good.
-Yeah.

[Gitanjali] Once I had my original device
done and I won the contest,

Denver Water reached out to me,
and they gave me an amazing lab space.

I was just so fascinated
by her level of understanding,

her intellect, her desire to do something
for the community.

I had never been to a water quality lab
in my life, and I was so excited.

[gasps] I was like, "This is amazing."

-[Selene] It's clear again.
-[Gitanjali] Yeah. Whoa.

[Selene] Normally we think
about scientific breakthroughs

in somebody that has lots of experience,

and the fact that she's so young,

and she's so eager
to learn about so many things.

When she walks in, it's like,

"Hey, we're gonna get to play
in the laboratory." Yeah.

Ri-- I mean, how cool is that?

-Whoa.
-So you can put another one.

[Gitanjali] When I was in second grade
or something, I used to be like,

"I'm into science,"
and the boys would be like,

"No, you're not. That's a guy thing.
Science is a guy thing."

And so that's when I got mad.

So, I'd push them out of the way
and, like, perform the experiment.

And I was like,
"See? I can do science too."

It was just so unbelievable to me
that people could even think that way.

[Bharathi] Now when she goes somewhere
and if it's just more boys than girls,

she's like, "This is what I want to do.

It doesn't matter
what others think of me."

That's cool.

[Selene] The cool thing about Gitanjali

is that other little girls can look up
and say, "Hey, she's doing it."

[man] Set the timer for a minute.

[Selene] There's no barriers here,

no matter what the rest of the world
is telling you,

and she's proof of that.

[woman] Can we all say welcome
to Ms. Anjali?

Welcome, Ms. Anjali.

Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
Do you remember me?

-Yes!
-You do?

Right? So you need to make sure
you know what you're talking about...

I've been doing a lot of STEM sessions
for elementary schoolers.

[Gitanjali] Planet and...

Anjali teaches us about
the science and being kindness.

[Bharathi] Seven years or a six-year-old
will not understand what is innovation,

but she teaches to them in a way
that they want to know more about it.

If I learn all this stuff, it's no use
unless I spread on the knowledge.

Scientists are everyone.

[girl] It makes me feel independent

because she is a scientist too
and she's a girl.

And so that's why
I want to be a scientist.

That medium where it's...

Teaching other kids
is Anjali's superpower.

[Gitanjali] I like to think of innovation
or creating inventions

as science combined with kindness.

So, using science to help other people.

Our entire world is one big community.
And it's our job to help others in need.

[Bharathi] Her ability
to bring about awareness,

whether it's about kindness
or water quality.

Those are two primary things
that I'm very proud of.

[Gitanjali] With, like, my device
and some of the other creations I create,

when I drop it out there
in this gigantic ocean,

it's a huge ocean, a huge world.

You drop a little pebble,
which is my device,

which is, like,
a fraction of that huge ocean,

it starts to spread out.

It starts within your house.
And then it goes to your neighborhood.

And then it goes to your city.
And then it goes to your state.

And then it goes to places like Flint.
And then it goes to the entire nation.

So by the time you drop multiple pebbles,

there'll be some sort of impact
on every single inch of that world.

Just like Anjali said, you know,
one pebble can spread to the whole world.

Um, she's showing us how one person
can change the world.

And that's what we wanted to focus on
in her comic book.

It was actually super fun
exploring her power set

in a visual comic book experience.

Because we believe
Anjali's super power is her mind.

Right? So, how do you translate that
into a comic book story?

And it was actually pretty fun.

It was about her being physically
in the water.

-Right.
-And revealing eventually,

like, while she's trying
to detect all these impurities,

revealing at the end of the day,
it's actually her.

-She's actually in a laboratory.
-Yeah.

Like, this is something
that she has created.

She's created something out of nothing,

which I think is the coolest thing
about Anjali.

I also really like the splash page
that we did at the end,

um, where we show her beginnings,
like, where she gets her ideas from.

You know, she discovered that in India
you needed to boil water to use it.

And she was, like,
"This doesn't make sense.

Everyone should be,
have access to clean water."

So she used her scientific mind
to try to fix that.

But I also really love the costume
we came up for her.

I love the colors. And the, and the boots.
They're, they're just so much fun.

You know, the other element actually was
making sure that the attention to detail,

in terms of what she looks like
was represented accurately on the page.

So hopefully she's gonna love
the way that she looks,

the way that this comic book
came together.

And for her reveal of this comic,
we're bringing her back to her school.

She's gonna be talking
to a kindergarten class

to tell them about this new app she has,

where she's combining kindness
and science, which is basically her motto.

She believes that you can make incredible,
impactful change

just through very simple, simple ideas.

She's just such an amazing change-maker.

[Gitanjali] Today we're gonna talk about
how we can use technology to be kind.

What I made is an app.

And the app can tell you
if you're sending a mean message or not.

[woman] Boys and girls, you know
how before we do an action, we stop and...

-Think and review.
-Think.

The app will help you stop and think
before you act. Yeah.

Anjali, I'm just so honored
to have you in our class.

You've been such an inspiration
for our students

to be scientists and to be kinder people.

Thank you.

But I want you to know
I'm not the only one that's proud of you.

Hi, Gitanjali. My name is Sangeeta Bhatia.

I'm a professor at MIT in electrical
engineering and computer science.

We here are so impressed

with your accomplishments
and your vision for Tethys.

To celebrate all that you've accomplished,

we would like to personally invite you
to visit the MIT campus

-and take a specialized tour...
-What?

...of the MIT School of Science.

We'll introduce you to some
of the team members and researchers,

then talk about your plans for the future.

I hope you're excited,
and we can't wait to see you.

Yes, I'm excited.

-Oh, my God.
-Oh, my God.

-[Kelly] Congratulations.
-Thank you.

We actually have
one more surprise for you.

Okay.

-[Gitanjali chuckles]
-[children chuckles]

Slight obsession with Marvel, so...

Are you ready?

-No, but sure. [chuckles]
-[chuckles]

"Dear Gitanjali, it is appropriate
that we are here in a classroom.

Classrooms are a space
that hold unlimited opportunity

and the potential to do great things.

And that's what you are doing.

Your friends at Marvel
see how amazing you are.

You don't just talk about
making the world a better place,

you build it yourself.

You inspire those around you,
young and old, to do the same.

That's not just what makes you a hero.

-That's what makes you a Marvel superhero.
-[gasps]

In honor of the special person
that you are,

we have something special for you."

Okay.

Oh, my gosh.

-[child] What's in it?
-[child 2] Spider-Man.

Hold on. Hold on.

[Simi] "This box and its contents signify

that you have been chosen to be
an official member of the new elite group,

-the Marvel Hero Project."
-Well done!

[all applaud]

"Look inside."

Okay.

"There's a jacket made just for you,

inspired by the many hours
you have spent in the lab."

Oh, my God.

"To show how much
you have moved all of us,

we are making a donation in your honor
to an organization that supports STEM,

Science, technology, engineering and math,
in the amount of $10,000."

-What, $10,000?
-I'm going to die.

Is that a lot of money?

"Now that you're an official Marvel hero,

joining the ranks of Shuri and Tony Stark,

the artists in the mighty Marvel Bullpen
wanted to make sure your story lives on.

So inside the box,
you will find a collector's item classic,

a comic book starring you."

Wait. Can I loo-- open it?

Mm-hmm.

"We hope that, inside these pages,

you see yourself
as the superhero you truly are.

Welcome to the Marvel Hero Project.
Your friends at Marvel."

-Look.
-Oh, my goodness.

Does she look like Anjali?

-Does it look me?
-[children] Yeah.

-Yes.
-[chuckling] This is amazing.

[Gitanjali] It's just super exciting.

Like, never something
that I could ever imagine.

I'm part of that Marvel Universe now.
Like, I'm one of them.

And it's-- It's-- Bleh. It's just crazy.

I like the jacket
and, even, I like the black hair.

I like this part,

-because she's lasering the bad stuff.
-Me too.

I do not want to drink that.

[Bharathi] I love the illustrations.

It's like a perfect... a comic book
that any child can pick it up,

and even an adult can pick it up,
and read it.

"It's time to solut--"

-"It's time for a big solution..."
-"Solution in a small package."

You are the package?

Yes. I am the small package.

Aren't these so cool?
You have to buy me those boots, okay?

No, I won't. I'm not your maid.

She's a superhero
because she helped lots of people.

It's amazing.

Video. And then, I'm looking at...

Superheroes don't really have an end.

They just go with what's in their heart.

I wanna do as much as I can and keep
solving the problems that I wanna solve.

-Oh, my God.
-So proud of you.