♪ ♪
NARRATOR:
We live in a built world;
engineering and technology,
built upon innovations and
inventions,
stretching back thousands
of years.
Some of our creations,
like machines,
boost our bodies' abilities.
Others help us reach outside
our comfort zones.
We have left an indelible mark
on the planet
and now the time has come
to use our skills
to make a better world.
Like turbo-charging
the ancient sling.
JONATHAN YANEY:
The idea is 50,000 years old.
NARRATOR:
To launch satellites in a way
we've never done before.
A device that boosts our
sense of touch
to share a dance.
PAUL GALANDO: I felt I
was moving along with you.
PATRICK PARISEAU: Begin.
NARRATOR: Or aid in movement.
A machine to boost
a human experience
and inspire a new generation.
Oh my gosh, so good.
NARRATOR: Or even
recreating a sense...
Good to go.
NARRATOR: to replace
something that was lost.
BRIAN BUSSARD: That
was the first time in years
that I had a
sensation of vision.
[whirring]
NARRATOR: "Building
Stuff! Boost It!,"
right now on "NOVA."
♪ ♪
ANNOUNCER: Major funding for
"NOVA" is provided by the following:
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Earth is home to
more than eight billion people,
living in a world full
of human invention.
ADAM STELTZNER:
Certainly in our modern world,
we don't really appreciate
how saturated with
engineering it is.
Every pen you pick up
to write something with
has been engineered.
The paper on which you write
has been engineered.
♪ ♪
FRANCISCO VALERO-CUEVAS:
Humans are engineers at heart.
You see a problem and
then you identify a solution.
And we've been
doing that forever.
NARRATOR: This thing
we call engineering...
what is it?
Where does this impulse
to make things come from?
♪ ♪
Anthropologists tell us
that the roots of invention
reach deeper into our
past than we ever imagined.
According to our best records,
some 3.3 million years ago
our ancestors figured out
how to sharpen a
certain kind of rock.
Creating a tool for cutting,
much better than our teeth.
Boosting the
chances for survival.
KENNETH HARRIS II: Humans dating
way, way back in time
have been inventing
things that help efficiency.
They help their survival,
that help drive them forward
based on the needs of that time.
MARIA YANG: It's an innate
desire to make things better
through making tools.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: And ever since,
one idea has led to another.
♪ ♪
And every invention
around us today
can be traced back
to those first tools...
♪ ♪
MAN: We have a cutoff
off at T-minus 30 seconds.
NARRATOR: Since the 1950s,
rockets have been
our go-to workhorse
for sending people
and payloads into orbit.
[rocket engines roaring]
They are some of the most
complex machines ever built;
the ultimate boost into the sky.
But they aren't exactly new.
Even modern rockets
have historic roots,
going back in time.
Some ancient projectiles
were powered by
chemical expl*sives
like gunpowder.
In 1232, Chinese soldiers
repelled a Mongol army
using flaming arrows...
likely propelled
by simple rockets.
♪ ♪
Today, rockets are
far more powerful.
Able to send humans to the moon
and the International
Space Station.
MAN: Solid rocket ignition.
NARRATOR: But
rockets have limitations...
STELTZNER: Putting
things in orbit is hard.
It takes a lot of energy.
Rockets are hard.
They take a lot of energy.
Basically the amount
of fuel required
for rockets to reach,
you know, the outer
reach of our atmosphere
is the limiting factor.
YANEY: Something
like 92, 93% of the mass
of any rocket is, is fuel;
leaving about 5% or 6%
for the actual structure
and only 2% for the payload.
HARRIS II: There is a
high demand... [chuckles]
to put things into space,
but there are limited means
of getting it there.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: But
that may soon change.
If engineers at a company
called SpinLaunch
can make the dream imagined
in this promotional
video a reality.
YANEY: SpinLaunch is a
highly unique way to get to space.
The idea itself
goes back to caveman times.
It's a sling.
NARRATOR: A sling is
an ancient hunter's weapon.
It's an improvement on the
arm and shoulder's ability
to throw a stone.
Archeologists have found
ancient evidence of slings;
some at least 12,000 years old.
For Jonathan Yaney,
the sling is an inspiration.
YANEY: It rotates.
And at the end of a
rotational element,
you have really,
really high speed.
NARRATOR: So Jonathan
embraced a radical idea:
use that speed to launch
a spacecraft into orbit.
MABRY: A sling is something
you spin around,
and basically the
more you can spin it,
the more force you can
basically put on the release
of whatever you're slinging out.
But if you scale this up,
that same principle
has the ability
to launch a rocket into orbit.
That's incredible.
NARRATOR: That idea
has been met with skepticism,
so the SpinLaunch
team has much to prove.
DAVID WRENN: It
is one of those ideas
that just sounds too crazy.
I think it's good
to look at things,
from a place of
skepticism, at the outset.
But then you have
to be objective
about looking at, well,
what are the underlying physics
and what might
really be possible?
NARRATOR: The SpinLaunch
team is using electricity
to generate rotational speed,
faster than the speed of sound.
The proposed payload...
a satellite encased in
a b*llet-shaped shell...
must withstand up to
the force of Earth's gravity,
until it is released...
at just the right moment.
Once the aeroshell
gets around 40 miles up,
the casing would separate
to allow two small
rocket engines
to propel the payload
the rest of the way
to low Earth orbit.
MABRY: The arm itself
that's actually spinning around
needs to be able to withstand it
to a certain degree as well.
So you have a need
to not only make sure
that it is structurally sound,
but there needs to be
precision in the timing
in the programming of
that actual release point.
YANEY: I don't have any
classical training as an engineer.
I self-educate.
I, I read a lot of
books... [chuckles]
lots of books, and
then I read them again
because I didn't really
understand them the first time.
I became an engineer
along the way.
NARRATOR: The team's first goal
was to build a proof of concept
mass accelerator
at one-eighth scale,
to validate the key technologies
and use it as a test bed
to spin potential
space-bound components
at many times the
force of Earth's gravity.
Also known as, as g-forces.
And "g" represents
one unit of Earth gravity.
When a pilot pulls up
on the yoke of their jet
and they make a hard turn,
they'll feel the equivalent of
multiple times' Earth gravity,
upwards of eight
Gs, for example.
NARRATOR: But
SpinLaunch payloads
will have to withstand forces
orders of magnitude stronger,
as many as 10,000 Gs.
So the team is working on
building and testing components
that can survive such
extreme acceleration.
STELTZNER: You know, in some
ways, we humans are sort of timid.
We feel most
comfortable with things
that look like
things we're used to.
So you can't really
tell at the outset
whether the thing that
you're doing that's outlandish
is really going to work.
NARRATOR: Today,
the SpinLaunch team
is asking a critical question:
Can a payload like a
CubeSat survive 10,000 Gs?
So a CubeSat is this
miniaturization of satellites,
literally making them
into these little
cube components.
So this ten centimeter
by ten centimeter
by ten centimeter unit,
is one piece that can be
added on top of each
other like LEGO blocks.
So we have some of the
most critical subsystems
that you would
see on any satellite.
We have a solar cell here.
It generates a current
that charges this battery up.
And then the battery
stores that energy, right.
And distributes it to all
of the critical subsystems
that require electricity.
So the OBC, or the onboard
computer, is one of them.
This is the, the
brains of the satellite.
NARRATOR: The team is confident
the CubeSat as a whole will survive,
but so far they've only
tested individual components,
and never the whole system.
CHACHRA: You know, it's a very,
very common
strategy in engineering
to say we're going
to break this problem
into small parts.
We're going to solve
each of the original parts,
and then we're going to
put it back together again.
NARRATOR: The team aims to test
some of the components
that are typically
found on CubeSats,
starting with the computer.
JUSTIN WILLIAMS: So
this is saying effectively
its power rails are
all working correctly.
It looks to be talking
to the world just fine.
NARRATOR: So far, they
know that the battery pack
is particularly vulnerable.
[machine whirring]
A pretest of the
battery pack system
didn't make it out
of the accelerator
in one piece.
[crunches]
SANDOMIRSKY: This
gave us a great benchmark
when it hit 7,650 Gs,
that it was pretty darn close.
[machine whirring]
[crunches]
And we didn't have
to do all that much
to make it compatible with
our launch environment.
The batteries aren't designed
for 10,000 Gs natively...
NARRATOR: The SpinLaunch
engineering team had to figure out
how to make the
batteries more resistant
to the high g forces.
WRENN: So this is the original.
SANDOMIRSKY: We
saw these batteries
laying on top of each other.
The concern there is that
when you're on the
bottom of the stack,
you're getting three batteries
worth of mass squished on to
plus your own mass. Yup.
NARRATOR: This
orientation of the battery cells
didn't work out so
well in the spinner.
The g forces are going this way.
WRENN: And you
can even see the bolts
are embedded and
bent into the base here.
One of the things
that we did was
turned it sideways. Yep.
Let each battery support itself
and itself only. Yeah.
SANDOMIRSKY: So we're
going to fully populate this satellite
with all of the key subsystems
that we're testing out here.
This is the pre-spin test
of the solar cell 1.2 volts.
And then after we're
done with the test,
we will check it out again
and make sure
that it's still getting
a similar voltage reading.
This is going to
be the first time
that this unit with
everything in it...
the battery pack, the computer...
is spinning up to 10,000 Gs.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Reaching
the acceleration
required for launch is itself
a difficult engineering
problem. There we go.
NARRATOR: At those speeds,
friction just from the
air would be intense.
So the inside of the accelerator
is actually a giant
vacuum chamber.
YANEY: If you can
pull all of the air out of it,
then there's no
more air resistance
and consequently heat
on the rotational structure.
[lock clicks]
SANDOMIRSKY: There we go.
[lock clicks] Now
we're going to go
let the, the vacuum chamber
draw down the pressure.
And then we can spin up.
MARK SIPPERLEY:
Accelerating system...
♪ ♪
[machine whirring]
[numbers clicking]
[whirring continues]
♪ ♪
[numbers clicking]
Time.
SANDOMIRSKY: Yeah! [laughs]
[applause]
♪ Come on, baby ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Let's go ♪
[tool clatters]
[echoing]: Well, look at that.
I don't hear any rattles.
Looks like it's intact.
STELTZNER: The
pressure one feels
when you're hoping for success
is mostly about
the incredible personal human
investment that's gone in
and not wanting to let down
all of your colleagues
when the moment of truth comes.
SANDOMIRSKY:
Let's crack it open.
I'm going to test
voltage on the solar cell.
Yeah. So 0.8.
That's in a reasonable range.
Okay, so now we will
take out the computer.
Looks like it is intact.
It's still responding
when we send it messages,
so it looks pretty good.
I would say that that
was a successful test.
Pretty cool.
Whoo!
[clapping] [laughs]
NARRATOR: SpinLaunch
has done what engineers do...
♪ ♪
methodically design,
test, evaluate...
[computer beeping] and repeat...
as they step their way up
to a system big enough
to send payloads
into low Earth orbit.
♪ ♪
YANEY: We went to
the desert of New Mexico
to build a flight test system,
you know, at a large scale
that would allow us
to essentially prove
that we had not only
the technology validated,
we could test our own ability
to construct and to execute
on a system of this
magnitude and scale.
[machine whirring]
NARRATOR: Launching
at one-third scale
was a powerful milestone,
spinning the payload
to more than 1,000
miles per hour.
♪ ♪
YANEY: It was an emotional
moment for the team.
[people cheering]
You have to have
a little bit of faith
to bring something like this
to that level and
to that, that scale.
[rockets bursting]
We've conducted ten successful
back-to-back flight tests.
We haven't had a single failure,
and I think that's a testament
to the practicality
of the technology.
SANDOMIRSKY: This
will be, for the first time
since we've gone to space
as a species, that we'll
be doing it differently.
NARRATOR: It's
common for engineers
to build on an old technology,
transforming it
with new materials,
to scale their
way to innovation.
It's with a spinning arm
that's throwing
satellites into space.
That's totally new.
How could that not be exciting?
♪ ♪
When you look at cutting
edge technology today,
you can see that it's
just being built upon
the things that we've
already seen from the past.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Sometimes
we boost technology
from the more recent past.
Consider something
we take for granted
in everything from cell phones
to cars to video games.
[video game beeping,
controller clicking]]
It's called "haptics".
Vibrations and other
physical sensations
that enable our
technology to talk back to us
through our sense of touch.
[cymbals clinking]
NARRATOR: At Harvard, scientist
and engineer Shriya Srinivasan
is thinking about those
physical feedback loops
every time she performs
an ancient dance.
SHRIYA SRINIVASAN: I've been
dancing since I was very young.
The ideas around movement
and sensory feedback
have been
percolating in my brain
in for a long time.
[cymbals tapping]
When I dance, of course,
I'm intimately aware of my
body and its movements.
What the audience
feels, however,
may be limited by
their conditioning
or what they can
perceive visually.
♪ ♪
[voiceover]: I am a
biomedical engineer by training
and at some point
I started to wonder,
can we use the receptors
in our skin to communicate
the complexity of the rhythms
that are embedded
within the choreography?
And would that
enable the audience
to experience then the
dance to a higher dimension?
NARRATOR: Shriya turned her
curiosity into an engineering problem:
Could she share the rhythmic
complexity of the choreography...
as she feels it in her
body with the audience?
To find out,
she and her dance company
co-founder, Joshua George,
are conducting trials at
Harvard's Motion Capture Lab.
♪ ♪
KRITHIKA SWAMINATHAN: So
we're going to grab this metatarsal point.
NARRATOR: The motion
capture system reads and records
the position of the
dots placed on Joshua,
in order to create a digital
version of his movements
and understand the
biomechanics of the dance. Great.
SRINIVASAN [voiceover]: But more
importantly, we're interested in capturing
what's not readily
visible to the eye.
So muscle activation,
for example,
or forces to the ground.
MAN: Now, can
you flex your biceps?
NARRATOR: Audience
members can see the movements,
but they can't feel the
force of a step or a jump.
VALERO-CUEVAS: If you
think about how humans interact,
we like shaking hands.
We like hugging.
So being able to tap into
that sense of touch,
or as it's sometimes
called embodiment,
is a gateway into
allowing you to be...
and experience something
that you're not
immediately doing,
for example, it'd be great
to feel how a dancer moves.
SRINIVASAN: So as you flex
the bicep, you can see in yellow
the activation of that muscle.
SWAMINATHAN: We have these
reflective markers that we put on someone.
We have them do
a certain movement.
We take that information
and kind of convert that into
body movement quantitative data.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: What we think of
as haptics embedded in technology
has roots in aviation.
As planes advanced,
pilots no longer felt mechanical
vibrations in the controls
when the plane
was about to stall.
So haptics were used to
replace these vibrations
artificially, preserving
the warning.
SETOR ZILEVU:
Haptics is super critical
and very innovative
in the design process
because it has the
ability to really blend
the physical world
with the digital world.
STELTZNER: In our analog world,
haptics were everywhere.
Things felt.
You pushed a
button on your radio
and the button went
sha-clank and you could feel it.
My brain is evolved
to sense whether that action
that I've taken with my finger
has resulted in a,
um, an actual an effect.
[computer beeping]
NARRATOR: Shriya's team is
applying this concept to dance.
SRINIVASAN: Take a
feel and see what you think.
NARRATOR: And the team is
using modern technology to develop it.
ISABELLA GOMEZ-HJERTHEN:
At the moment we're using
two different types of
haptics on the phone.
[phone vibrating]
So we can set them
at different intensities,
different sharpness.
We can also vary
how long they are.
We're able to then assign
a haptic pattern or
a vibration pattern
to that move and have
it happen at that time,
during the song or
during the performance.
NARRATOR: They are under
pressure to work out the kinks...
they're giving a
performance the next day
and they hope to work with
the audience to test the system.
SWAMINATHAN: Okay.
Yeah, I think we're set for Friday.
NARRATOR: Besides
enhanced dance performances,
Shriya's lab is also using
haptics to do research
to help medical patients
with muscle spasticity
move more smoothly.
They're asking if
vibration feedback
can reduce the
symptoms of spasticity;
a condition that causes
muscles to stiffen,
making them difficult to move...
often as result of
spinal cord injury
or traumatic brain injury,
A.L.S., multiple
sclerosis, or cerebral palsy.
Patrick Pariseau,
a PhD candidate,
is one of Shriya's students.
PARISEAU: With spasticity,
it feels like someone
is holding your limb in place.
Any time you want to move,
you have to struggle
against yourself.
NARRATOR: In the
Motion Capture Lab,
Shriya is working on
a potential solution.
SRINIVASAN [voiceover]: The nervous
system is kind of like an orchestra.
And conducting it is the brain,
sending signals but
also receiving feedback
about which parts
are playing what.
And having them work together
is the key to executing movement
and moving
seamlessly in the world.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: In typical arm motion,
the bicep contracts to
bend the arm at the elbow
while the tricep relaxes,
and the tricep contracts
to straighten the arm
while the bicep relaxes.
[electronic buzzing]
The device that they're building
is designed to pick up
activation of one muscle
and then mechanically tell
the opposite muscle to relax.
♪ ♪
SRINIVASAN: In a patient
with spasticity, for example,
there's co-contraction,
so as your bicep contracts,
your tricep is also contracting
and that causes that
movement to be rigid.
PARISEAU: So we're
targeting the biceps and triceps.
Let me know if it's too tight.
DARAIO: Biomedical
engineering, requires
a fundamental
understanding not only of
the basic engineering principles
like mechanics,
electronics and...
uh, computer science,
but also of the
fundamental properties
of the biology of
the human body.
NARRATOR: Step one:
put the prototype system
on student volunteer Anni
and use it to collect data
with a simple reflex test.
We've attached E.M.G. sensors.
So E.M.G. is electromyography.
We're going to record the
activation of her muscles
and then display
it on this laptop.
[device beeping,
hammer tapping in rhythm]
Yeah, I think that was...
that, that was. Oh, yeah.
PARISEAU: Yeah?
That was a strong one.
NARRATOR: Step two:
measure the amount
of muscle activation
when the device vibrates,
to see if the
activation goes down.
PARISEAU: So now we are
going to turn on the vibration.
SRINIVASAN: Here
what we're looking at is
can we apply vibratory stimuli
at just the right time
and at the right amount
and the right parameters
to relax the relevant muscles
to allow for more free movement.
[device beeping,
hammer tapping in rhythm]
Yeah, I think
that's... All right.
So now it should be
stimulating on the bicep.
Can you feel it on
your bicep? Yes.
[device beeping,
hammer tapping in rhythm]
Yup. Yep. Right there?
All right. Great.
NARRATOR: The next step?
Preliminary analysis
of the motions.
The hope is that
vibration reduces
unwanted muscle activation
so they can use
vibrations in their device
to relax the targeted muscles.
If they can demonstrate that,
then eventually they
plan to build a device
that will detect
activation in one muscle
and determine which
other muscle to deactivate.
[electronic buzzing]
PARISEAU: Begin.
NARRATOR: Boosting flexibility
and restoring motion.
Two, three, four, five.
NARRATOR: In
today's test... Relax.
NARRATOR: the device is
giving them encouraging data.
Confirming vibration
as an effective strategy
for relaxing specific muscles
brings them one step closer
to developing a therapeutic
device for spasticity.
PARISEAU: The feeling
that we were able to,
What appears to be successfully,
relax those muscles
with vibration
was a very good feeling,
because it means that
we're one step closer
to help people with
spasticity move more easily.
NARRATOR: From
one test to another.
Good evening, everybody.
Welcome to Decoded Rhythms.
The human nervous system...
NARRATOR: The first opportunity
for Shriya and her dance company
to add a layer to
the performance
through haptic feedback.
Sensation is the gateway
to the human experience.
NARRATOR: Audience
members download an app,
and as they watch and listen,
they'll feel
synchronized vibrations.
♪ ♪
SWAMINATHAN: We're
hoping that the audience
can be more in tune
with the performance
by giving them this
sort of understanding,
haptically, what the
dancers are doing.
♪ ♪
[music ends]
[audience applauding]
SRINIVASAN: I thought it was
a good work in progress demo.
Most of the technology
aspects worked well.
Everything synced,
and it was exciting
to just see initial...
people's initial
reactions to it.
I love this. Um, I'm
an ex ballet dancer.
There's something about
having this motion and movement
in my hand, but I felt I
was moving along with you,
and that was really cool.
[audience applauding]
NARRATOR: Combining two worlds,
each adding a bit to the other.
SRINIVASAN: I
would say that the data
that we're gathering
from the dance work,
the biomechanics,
the ability to
classify movements
to interpret intent,
all of those higher
level insights
will guide us in the development
of patterns for
patients with spasticity.
Two, three, four, five.
Relax.
NARRATOR: We all
have physical limits.
But tools of all kinds help us
go beyond what our
bodies can do on their own.
Simple machines,
like levers and
pulleys and screws,
boost our strength.
But we also make
tools just for fun.
Every invention
starts with an idea.
TAHIRA REID SMITH:
We're trying to see
how much play there is...
NARRATOR: For Tahira Reid Smith,
her idea comes from
a childhood passion:
Double Dutch.
GIRL: One two, three, four,
five, six, seven, eight...
REID SMITH: Growing
up in Bronx, New York,
in the 1980s,
Double Dutch was just
what you did as a little girl.
NARRATOR: This double
rope version of jump rope
was brought to New
York by Dutch settlers
in the 17th century.
[kids chanting]
More recently,
it became popular,
particularly among Black girls,
in cities across the U.S.
There are even
fiercely competitive
national competitions,
and in some high schools,
it's recognized
as a varsity sport.
♪ ♪
To play,
Double Dutch requires two people
spinning ropes in
opposite directions
and at least one person to jump.
Tahira dreamed of a
machine that would allow her,
an only child at the time,
to play Double Dutch
whenever she wanted.
In third grade, she won
a contest for that concept.
And in the years that followed,
she never gave up on that dream.
REID SMITH: Major
passion project.
Talking about an idea
that I've had for decades.
NARRATOR: Today, she's a
mechanical engineer and professor,
working in
human-machine systems.
And she's building
to her ultimate dream:
to create an affordable
version of her invention
that people
everywhere could enjoy.
Meanwhile, another engineer,
Sky Leilani, is working on
her own Double Dutch prototype.
Sky works at a robotics
software company.
SKY LEILANI:
When I was in college,
I found Dr. Reid's
Double Dutch machine,
at a point where I was
feeling like I couldn't
get where I wanted to go.
I was just surrounded by
a lot of people who
didn't look like me.
I saw she was from the Bronx,
which is kind of similar
to where I'm from,
and that really inspired me.
Problems that matter,
that are informed by culture,
then informed by background,
can stimulate the desire
to get into engineering,
to desire to go about this
process of creating something
that didn't previously exist.
The problems in which we decide
are important enough to solve
are influenced by
someone's background
and someone's culture.
NARRATOR: Tahira has come
to Viam Robotics in New York City
to collaborate with Sky.
Hi! Oh my gosh, hi!
NARRATOR: Bringing
along her goddaughter, Sa'nai,
part of the latest generation
interested in engineering
Double Dutch.
REID SMITH: When I
first learned about Sky,
it really touched
me deeply, because
I didn't know that people
were watching me from afar.
When I was looking at your
designs, I was just like, "Wow."
REID SMITH [voiceover]: I was very
encouraged by it, I was also impressed by
her passion and her excitement.
NARRATOR: Sky isn't a
mechanical engineer like Tahira is.
She's iterated on
Tahira's design,
adding
computer-controlled motors
and a software interface
to control the two ropes.
DARAIO: What are
the traits of an engineer?
I think I think it's
hard to generalize.
I feel like there's,
there's many different
kinds of engineering.
There's many different
kinds of skills required
in the different
types of engineering.
REID SMITH: She's modernized it,
writing code to control it.
There's vision for even an app,
and doing everything
largely through
computer software
and electronics.
Very little mechanical
engineering.
NARRATOR: As Sky
describes her approach,
Tahira sees that
Sky is running into
a familiar problem:
synchronizing the ropes.
♪ ♪
The ropes need to
extend in a high arc,
turning in opposite directions
and staying 180 degrees
out of phase with each other...
in other words, when
one rope is on the ground,
the other should
be directly overhead.
As they rotate,
they need to maintain
a regular rhythm
to truly create Double Dutch.
It looks easy when
a person does it,
but as Tahira and
Sky know firsthand,
it's anything but
simple to engineer.
That was wrong.
[clattering]
REID SMITH: The motor is always
the most challenging
aspect. LEILANI: Mm-hmm.
REID SMITH: And that
is how it was with us.
With Double Dutch,
the biomechanics
that people use to get it to...
it looks so seamless. Yeah.
But trying to recreate
that in a robot? Yes.
You realize...
VALERO-CUEVAS:
We have to ask ourselves
how does the biology
do it with materials and
information processing units
that no engineer
would dream of using?
How is it that we can
move both ropes so well
at the same time,
but a robot can't?
So then the question
is, what do we need to do
to replicate that?
Look to your left.
That's so cool.
NARRATOR: Sky has chosen motors
that are powerful
enough to swing the ropes,
with an added feature.
LEILANI: The motor for
the Double Dutch machine
is from a hoverboard.
They're DC motors
with encoders in them,
so they can track the position.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: The encoder
setup uses magnetic poles
mounted on the motor's shaft.
A nearby sensor detects
the changes in magnetic field
as the motor spins,
tracking the motor's
rotational position and speed
with precision.
That information can
then be sent to a computer,
to adjust the spin in real time.
At least, in theory.
REID SMITH: A and C
we're running right now.
LEILANI: Not B. B
isn't running, see?
NARRATOR: For now, only three
of Sky's four motors are spinning.
REID SMITH: If these
are two people's arms,
it's just that...
it's like you step
to the right... Okay.
NARRATOR: They decide
to align two working motors
so they can work with
one spinning rope for now.
Let's just turn it
on, let's just see.
♪ ♪
Yeah, this is slow enough
where I could actually
just walk into it.
[excited squeal]
NARRATOR: It's an
impressive milestone:
the two arms turning the
rope are perfectly in sync.
[laughs]
Oh, it's...
Okay.
Yay! [both clapping]
Oh my gosh, so good.
I haven't seen anybody use it
or anything, this... [exclaims]
Let's see...
It's really important,
especially in sort of
engineering projects
where there's a consumer,
to sort of take prototypes
and actually test them
with your end users
to see what their feedback is.
LEILANI: That's
what I love so much
about this project, is
Double Dutch is collaborative
and then robotics
as an entire field,
it combines three types
of engineering: mechanical,
electrical, and
software engineering.
NARRATOR: After making
some tweaks to the code,
they decide to try
a true Double Dutch jump.
REID SMITH: You want to
hear a pat-pat, pat-pat, pat-pat...
Okay, can you take
it over for me? Okay.
NARRATOR: With two
of the working motors,
Tahira guides Sky to
be a stand-in turner.
Just snatch it from
me. Okay, okay.
[laughs]
I'm gonna just try
it with a little bit...
[jumping echoing]
NARRATOR: With Sky's assistance,
the motors are leading the way.
[jump rope clattering]
And they're
working like a charm.
Oh, that's so satisfying!
Oh my gosh. [breathless]: Okay.
Thank you so much,
Dr. Reid. You are so welcome.
This is... amazing.
This was fun.
LEILANI: Working
with Dr. Reid today
was incredible.
It was actually a dream for me.
I felt like, if I continue
with this project,
I'm gonna get there,
and then I'm going to see
myself as a different person
who's capable of more
than I used to think I was.
NARRATOR:
Meanwhile, after decades,
Tahira is finally taking her
own Double Dutch design
to the next level.
♪ ♪
And when we've
done small tests...
NARRATOR: She's partnering
with a product design company,
to turn her prototype
into an affordable,
consumer-ready version.
Historically what has
been difficult has been
how to design the
system in such a way
that it's fully functional
and also cost effective.
NARRATOR: Which
is why she still thinks
that the most practical
approach is to use
only mechanical means
to synchronize the motors.
Tahira and director
of industrial design,
Steve Escobar, are deep in
the proof-of-concept stage.
♪ ♪
For now, they're working with
a rudimentary plywood model
to answer a few
basic design questions.
ARMANI: Once you have an idea,
how are you going to actually
execute the idea?
How are you going to design
the idea so that people
will actually want to use it?
How are you going
to make it accessible?
Both from a cost
perspective, but also...
from a user
interface perspective.
NARRATOR: This first
iteration of the design
uses just one
motor on each side,
plus some good old-fashioned
mechanical hardware,
like gears,
sprockets, and chains.
[creaking]
Already,
they're facing a few
familiar challenges.
Looks like it's
in sync, actually.
NARRATOR: Including
getting the ropes in sync.
It's starting to go out of sync.
Okay.
NARRATOR: With years
of Double Dutch experience,
Tahira knows exactly what
the ropes should sound like.
REID SMITH: We
need to be able to hear
a consistent pat-pat, pat-pat.
But we're hearing...
[slow, uneven clapping]
It's very rhythmic.
That's why when
stuff's out of beat,
it's like... it's
like the whole...
it's-it's, it's just wrong.
If anything slips,
it would be a tooth.
NARRATOR: Using gears
is a common sense way
to keep the rotation
of the ropes in sync.
But something is wrong.
REID SMITH: We think
the weight of the rope
was throwing this off.
ESCOBAR: When it's in motion,
it's actually creating
too much force
for these arms.
REID SMITH: Let's
take some of these off
and let's see what happens.
Let's see, let me
just listen for it.
[ropes patting
ground rhythmically]
MICHAEL SPRAUVE:
So how's it going?
Yeah, it's coming along.
NARRATOR: Michael Sprauve,
president of Speck Design,
stops in to see how
things are progressing.
Where are we at, guys?
NARRATOR: As a team,
they talk about the day's testing,
and how to improve the design.
REID SMITH: There's
a lot to think about
with some of the play
that's still in the arms.
Your visit with Sky was
very inspirational to us,
and that was switching
from a single motor with gears
to two motors at each end.
When you shared that with us,
it really kind of
turned a light bulb on.
It's extremely important to have
to have different people
who can see things
from a different angle,
because each one of us
have our own blind spots.
NARRATOR:
Tahira's initial designs
were rooted in her
experience with mechanisms.
But collaborating with Sky
has expanded the possibilities
for realizing the machine.
The best moments of ideation
are, in my experience,
collaborative.
And they involve ideas
bouncing off one another,
being folded over, the
negative of that idea
being turned in into the
positive of this other idea.
NARRATOR: Working
together across different fields,
what engineers call
interdisciplinary collaboration,
can be a powerful multiplier.
Though a lot more
troubleshooting remains,
Tahira's project is
finally coming to life
after decades of work.
REID SMITH: Semi-surreal.
Exciting... [clapping]
It's a lot.
It's... heartwarming, it's...
[wavering sigh]
[whispering]: I'm just glad.
[sniffles]
There's a message
behind this product
when it gets on the market,
there's a story to
inspire young girls,
young inventors,
young minds, dreamers.
NARRATOR: Tahira
dreamt of a machine
that could recreate the motions
of another person's arms.
But what happens
when engineers take aim
at a biological system
that is far more
complex... like vision?
Restoring the ability
to see with an idea
that once seemed
like science fiction.
[indistinct radio chatter]
PHILIP TROYK: "The
Six Million Dollar Man."
I have to say, if there
was any inspiration,
that, that show was.
PILOT: I can't hold
it, she's breaking up...
[booming]
MAN: We can rebuild him.
We have the technology.
TROYK: When I was
an undergraduate,
I became interested in how
electronics could be
mated with the human body.
NARRATOR: For
more than 20 years,
Phil Troyk and his
interdisciplinary research group
have been pioneering
a technology
designed to restore some vision
to those who have
lost the ability to see.
We've been using prosthetics
to restore our bodies' abilities
for thousands of years.
VALERO-CUEVAS: One of
the most useful prosthetics
has been the very
humble glasses, right?
So you have a sense,
you have a sense of sight,
but then there's a distortion
in the curvature of your eye,
so then you use a lens
to compensate for that.
NARRATOR: But this new device
takes visual prosthetics
to the next level.
The idea is to take the
information you capture
from a camera and bypass
the eyes and optic nerve
and go directly to the brain.
VALERO-CUEVAS: The state of
neuro engineering is at its infancy
with very, very promising
avenues for growth.
One that has been for a very
long time a dream of engineers
is to be able to interface
with the nervous system.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: Phil's group is
the first to receive FDA permission
to implant into the
brain of a blind person
a network of
wireless stimulators,
each just five
millimeters across.
PHIL TROYK: You see the
electrodes sticking out there.
Even if they meet the criteria...
the visual, the
medical criteria...
they have to be willing to
embark on brain surgery.
It's hard to find
someone that fits into
all of that criteria.
NARRATOR: The team has
qualified their first participant...
Brian Bussard, who
lost his vision completely
several years ago.
Does the headband
match my shoes?
WOMAN: It does, actually.
[laughing]: I was kidding.
NARRATOR: Brian agreed to have
a group of these stimulators
surgically implanted
in his visual cortex.
When you're considering
designing something
that will be
implanted in a person,
One of the safety checks
is making sure that
whatever that thing is,
it doesn't actually
harm a person.
And how did you
sleep last night,
on a scale of one to ten? Seven.
NARRATOR: For the trial,
he is referred to
as the participant,
not the patient,
as his collaboration
with the entire
team is essential.
BUSSARD: I was
going to be the first one.
In my lifetime,
I get to be the first
of something that
could change people's
lives later on. You know,
like, who was the first
person to walk on the moon?
NEIL ARMSTRONG: It's
one small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind.
ARMANI: Artificial vision has
really been enabled by
advances in imaging technology.
The development of
incredibly tiny detectors
and incredibly tiny
communication-signaling
transmitters
have enabled these
implantable devices.
NARRATOR: The
implants in Brian's brain
are receivers for
signals, that in turn,
stimulate the brain.
The coil transmits signals
that they hope the
brain will interpret
as visual information.
MICHAEL BARRY: Each
of those 25 arrays has
can stimulate on command.
And the goal is to
use those electrodes to
activate the healthy
neurons that are still there,
and just haven't been receiving
normal visual input for a while.
[pinging]
BUSSARD: What do I see?
Probably the closest
thing I would say,
is if you had blips
on a radar screen.
NARRATOR: The
process requires creating
a new kind of visual language.
DAGNELIE: Imagine getting these
funny flashing lights
from either a retinal
or a cortical prostheses
that don't look anything
like what vision used to be.
And then your brain
is beginning to discover
there's a message
to the madness.
There are some patterning here,
and if I can try to find out
how things hang together,
then I can learn to
understand what's around me.
VALERO-CUEVAS:
People used to think,
well, we need to recreate
the signals from the eyes
into that same neural code.
But we've seen examples
where if you establish a,
an interface with those areas,
and you give them
a consistent input,
the brain will adapt
and interpret those
as best as it can.
NARRATOR: As Brian continues
to adapt, the work has progressed
from the chair to a
smaller, cart-sized version
of the system,
connected by a cord,
with researcher Michael Barry
pushing the cart
and following behind.
TROYK: So we're putting
on the visible light glasses.
[voiceover]: The basic
idea is to capture images
with a camera technologically,
somehow convert those images
to the commands that go to
each of these little modules.
BARRY: Stand up
slowly, but to your left.
BUSSARD: The first real
exciting thing for me was
when we added a camera to it.
I went like this with my hand,
and then I went like,
"oh, there's my thumb."
So that was the first
time in probably six years
that I had a
sensation of vision.
That was exciting.
It gave me a system.
GRANT: So what we're
going to work on today
is a task of finding
an open chair.
Can you identify
which chair is open?
[clacking]
Right there.
Great job. BARRY:
Yeah, good job.
TROYK: What we're providing is
really a targeting system.
It says for whatever
the camera is detecting,
"Is something there?"
It says where something is,
but you don't know what it is.
Let me find the cart. [laughs]
That way we
don't pull the cords.
Hey, so do you want to
try something infrared?
NARRATOR: The team decides
to expand the testing to include
a camera that can
see wavelengths of light
beyond what humans can see.
BARRY: So now we
have the thermal sensor.
ARMANI: Why should you limit
your wavelengths
to the visible range?
Why not allow someone
to see in the thermal range?
NARRATOR: With
his limited vision,
infrared allows Brian
to distinguish people...
and animals... by
their body heat.
GRANT: For this task,
you'll find there's
one occupied chair.
Well, there's Grace right there.
Hi, Grace, nice to meet you.
[chuckling]
[voiceover]: But you
still have the big donut
in the back of your
head, you still have
the wires for the camera.
If you walk too fast,
well, we can pull the coil.
You lose signal and
you got to stop and reset.
YANG: There are a
lot of technologies that
work beautifully
in a lab, right?
Where you have a lot
of space, it's dedicated,
and everything works well.
But the reality is people
move, they have their lives,
they want to live the way
they want to live and be mobile.
Nice to meet you.
NARRATOR: With the
basic technology working,
the team has been
building a system
that condenses an
entire cart of equipment
into a wearable device,
so Brian can go mobile.
The camera records
images that are translated by
a mini computer into signals
his brain can understand.
These are then sent
through a transmitter
and beamed into
Brian's implants,
reaching his visual cortex.
TROYK: Okay, so I'm going
to put this on your belt, okay?
You should be good
to go. We're good to go.
TROYK: You're freed up.
Trish was right
there, she moved.
[laughs] Now she's right there.
I'm just gonna tell you,
you can walk to me.
I was gonna say, she's right
there. Yeah, I'm right here.
Okay, so, I'm guessing
this is tables over here?
Or somebody or something.
TRACY BUSSARD: So, as soon as
he didn't have that starting and stopping
of trying to keep the
cart right behind him...
Yeah, he just
decided to just walk
around the room and
see what all was here.
[clicking]
I'm free!
Becoming untethered
was a big step.
It gave me the flexibility
to move and try and
figure it out quicker,
or on my own.
Okay, there's something here.
[clacking] Is this
another table?
BARRY: So now we
have the thermal sensor.
[beeping]
There's somebody right there.
You found me. Yay!
NARRATOR: Watching Brian
see his wife... without his eyes...
is a powerful validation
of all their hard work.
The moment today when
he had on the mobile unit
and he walked to
his wife and saw her,
I just thought that was
really a special moment.
She didn't make a sound,
but you went to her,
you found her in the room.
YANG: You think, "Oh my
gosh, this man has lost his vision,
"and now he can see
something with the help of
this engineering
system strapped to him."
All of these things
have come together.
All that iteration and
testing and protocols.
It's pretty amazing.
TROYK: This person is
volunteering themselves,
they're putting
themselves at risk.
They're doing so not because
they expect to get vision back,
it's for advancement
of knowledge.
It's for what we learn now
will make possible
what will become
standard of care
There's somebody right there.
[voiceover]: Just from
a human standpoint,
I think we should be
wired that we want to
leave the world a better place
than it was when we got here.
NARRATOR: The following
day, the team gathers
to review their progress
with the mobile system.
TROYK: Did it
accomplish the goal
of making you feel more
autonomous and liberated?
Well, full disclosure,
if it would've been
nice out yesterday,
it would've been "Oops,
I made a left-hand turn
to go out the door." [laughter]
Now it's okay.
Well, what do
we prioritize next?
Probably the next...
step would be is
if we can combine
either the two cameras into one,
or even adding the
second visual camera
so we can get depth into it.
From an engineering perspective,
engineering is not
just a technology
stemming from math and science.
And the question
we're asking is:
how can an artificial
interface like this
be used to provide
useful sensory information
for someone who has blindness?
We do have now the interface,
albeit in somewhat simpler
form than some would like.
But we do have the interface,
and we are now
answering the questions.
YANG: It's such a high risk,
high payoff
engineering challenge.
Giving vision to someone
who's visually impaired
is just such a holy grail
engineering strategy,
and they've done it.
Our aspirations are high,
and we only get there by
making step-by-step
incremental progress.
[panting] There
he is, hey, buddy.
I think we're proud of the fact
that maybe we got there first.
BUSSARD: Good boy.
TROYK: I think we're done.
♪ ♪
NARRATOR: We're here today,
with the world
around us as it is,
because we are
hard-wired to invent...
design,
and build tools.
As we continue to boost
our abilities with technology,
it's anyone's guess
what we'll create
in the future.
STELTZNER: When we
go to create something new,
we're stepping into the unknown.
NARRATOR: With
creativity and collaboration,
we can solve even the
most difficult problems.
ARMANI: Science
fiction has always
inspired the world.
And it is the job of engineers
to convert that inspiration
into innovation
and invent the solutions.
[machine beeps]
NARRATOR:
Building stuff,
to benefit all.
♪ ♪
[blasting off]
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
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51x18 - Building Stuff: Boost It!
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Nova often includes interviews with scientists doing research in the subject areas covered and occasionally includes footage of a particular discovery.
Nova often includes interviews with scientists doing research in the subject areas covered and occasionally includes footage of a particular discovery.