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09 January 2004

Editorial: The Mars Rover is a Major Boost for Amateur and Student Robotics

Forrest M. Mims III

During the closing ceremonies of a New York robotics competition in 2002, inventor Dean Kamen thanked an enthusiastic crowd of high school students for participating.

According to Wired magazine, Kamen also expressed deep concern about the decline of interest in science and engineering among U.S. students. Noting that only five percent of high school students participate in robotics competitions, Kamen said much more must be done to promote an interest in robotics by students.

Thanks to NASA's successful landing of a robotic craft on Mars, Kamen's goal may just have received a huge boost.

Late last Saturday night, I joined more than 48,000 Internet users who logged onto www.nasa.gov to watch details about the landing of the first of two Mars Exploration Rovers. After the loss of two earlier Mars missions, the success of this one was a major morale booster for NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Students prepare their robot at a FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition regional playoff at Columbia University. Photograph courtesy of FIRST. Click image to enlarge.

After news of the successful landing was broadcast worldwide, NASA's web site experienced a huge spike in traffic. According to a NASA media release, between 3 a.m. EST Saturday, January 3, and Tuesday afternoon, NASA's main web site received a billion hits. This is more than a third of the total number of hits received during all of 2003.

During an interview on PBS's Charlie Rose Show, a JPL official speculated that the majority of hits were from young people, He just might be right. But I suspect we amateur scientists were contributing our fair share.

In any event, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Mars landing could be the rapidly growing robotics competition movement. Already students from all across the United States and in various other countries build radio-controlled and more advanced robots designed to accomplish a specific task during a fast moving competition. Student teams are provided packages of parts and the necessary electronics to build their robots. The rest is up to them.

I once though these competitions were overly simplistic. That was before I accompanied my daughter Sarah to a robotics competition where she was the team leader from her school. The event was held in a university gymnasium complete with a color guard presentation, a big crowd and high school bands.

The first time I saw the robot assembled by Sarah's team was around an hour before the competition. While the thing actually worked, the wheels looked as if they might fall off their axles after only a few revolutions. I was wrong. The robot held up during the entire competition, during which the team members took turns directing their robot to retrieve a balloon and deposit it in a cage.

For proof the robotics movement is doing well, do a quick search on an Internet search engine. You'll find hundreds of links to robotic competitions. You'll also quickly find that robotics competitions are being sponsored by big names like NASA and inventor Dean Kamen.

While robotics is related much more to engineering than to science, many of the skills it teaches can be directly applied to science. There is also the very likely prospect that some of today's robotics competitors might someday graduate to designing self-propelled craft for exploring distant planets. That alone is reason enough for the Society for Amateur Scientists to stay abreast of this rapidly growing movement.