Vertical integration

I will not be going South by Southwest this year. I don't drink promotional energy drinks while I watch bands play at 9 AM or travel out of my way to see the Daniel Johnston mural on the side of the Thai restaurant.

For a change of pace, I've decided to hole myself up in my apartment for a week, order take out and feel nostalgic for the days of air travel and just leaving my house.

If you happen to be in Austin this year, you can catch the premier of More than Robots, directed by Gillian Jacobs and Britney from Community. The film hits Disney+ on March 18 for the rest of us. Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway/i invention, founded the first robot competition in 1989.

We are interviewing Kamen about the state of science and technology education in the U.S.

First

Take me back to the beginning. What was the landscape like when you founded the organization?

There wasn't a landscape. There was no competition. We're done with that. It has never been about the machines. Thirty years ago, when I started FIRST, my goal was never to make it about the robots or a robot competition.

I don't come up with the slogans, but in order to get people to help me, I'd say we're not using kids. I need a way to compete with the world of sports. Our culture has mastered the fact that only special, geeky, nerd people can or would like to do math or science, and that's why the academic world attracts a very small number of people to science, technology and engineering.

Thirty years ago, it was very simple. I don't want to give advantage to the advantaged by finding a new, better way to make a science fair that already attracts the smart kids to make an even bigger gap than the haves and the have nots. I had a different goal. I was afraid that we would have two classes of people, the people who understand how to use technology and the people who don't, and there would be everyone else.

Results are a connection with sports. You make a thing or it doesn't.

Yes. If it works, the kids can be proud and have nobody to blame. When kids start playing with technology, there are no loopholes because the laws of physics are pretty neat. Mother nature is perfect. Every law we make can be circumvented. The laws of nature are fair, elegant and self-consistent. The power of analytical thinking and the laws of nature start to be appreciated by kids that come through FIRST. That is why we do it.

You think the education gap has only grown in the last 30 years?

The gap has been narrowed for all the kids in FIRST programs. 30% of these kids are women, 50% come from Title One schools. We are going after the right kids to make the biggest difference in their lives. Everything that I was fearing was happening in our society, the wealth going more and more to those that are the haves and are using technology as a weapon, not as a tool, all of that has, sadly, become a real potential to undermine our whole society. It was the prevention from that that I promoted first. I think it is the antidote to that. We have to fix it because it happened.

The programs like it are extracurricular. Is there a way to integrate it directly into the classroom?

When I started, I got almost all of it right, so I would give myself a C- or maybe a D. They should keep it out of the classroom, make it aspirational, and make it like every other sport they do. The keep it out of the classroom was probably a self inflicted wound. While only a few kids play on the football or basketball team, every kid in school gets to go to gym class and play a little baseball, a little basketball, a little football and get familiar with it.

We didn't immediately start doing that because we didn't make it available to get a taste of it in the classroom.

First offers an educational curriculum for in-class learning.

The eventual job loss of blue-collar work is something a lot of people discuss.

That is nonsense.

Is there more that can be done to prepare the workforce?

I would ask someone to find me a single example of a new technology that created fewer jobs and less money in the long run. People think the world is a zero sum game. You could build a house and make a road with the help of ditch diggers. It would take a hundred people to make a hole large enough for a house and 10,000 people to make a road long enough for a bulldozer to be invented.

A bulldozer is going to put 1,000 people out of work if one person says one bulldozer is going to do the work of 1,000 people with shovels. If you still needed a short road that went from place to place, it would be true. Wait, a minute! We can build highways that cross North America in a couple of years now that we have bulldozers. We will more than double the opportunity for this. It isn't going to replace what we used to do with backbreaking work.

There is a long term and a short term. There will be a job loss. People who dig ditches don't necessarily know how to drive a bulldozer. Is there a way to accelerate the adoption of high-tech jobs?

What should we do? We should give these people the chance to break down their fear of technology. Parents, teachers and corporate people should all participate in getting kids into it.

What is this organization called?

I think it's for inspiration and recognition in science and technology. Generations can be put together in a fun environment. I thought it would be adults like engineers and scientists inspiring kids, but now I see that it is actually kids that are inspiring adults and the teachers and the parents.

The image is called Traptic.

I don't think vertical farming is mentioned enough in the agtech conversations. It's a bit of a niche at the moment, compared to the world of more traditional farming. Every vertical farming outfit I've spoken with has told me that robotics are an important part of their plans.

It makes sense. It's difficult for humans to navigate and monitor vertically stacked produce. Computer vision systems and robotic pickers can thrive in these environments. The acquisition of Traptic by Bowery Farming was something of a surprise. It represents a pivot for the Bay Area-based startup, which has thus far focused on strawberry-picking systems for the field.

Lewis Anderson told me that Traptic's technology will be exclusive to Bowery's network of smart indoor farms. The first indoor farming company to use that technology will be Bowery.

The move away from the field is interesting for agtech. There is interest with farms dealing with labor shortages. It follows a relaunch under new ownership. The right company can take advantage of the opportunity. The Traptic team should be interested in vertical farming because it is an exciting category.

The image is called Exodigo.

This week, there was a big funding round for Tel Aviv-based Exodigo. The firm uses drones to map subterranean areas for things like construction, mining and utilities.

The era of blind digs is over with the help of Exodigo, which gives companies an easy to understand map of what lies beneath the surface.

The $29 million round was announced this morning. The funding will be used to pilot its technology in some states.

Cartken is an image.

If you're a fan of sidewalk robots, Rebecca has a conversation with Cartken co-founder and COO Anjali Naik about the beginnings of the company and some of her thoughts on the state of last-mile delivery.

We definitely use our operators in early deployments and for mapping areas as well, and that just helps us deploy faster. It’s one of those things where we can drop a robot today in an area and operate tomorrow. We can do those things very quickly, and, in parallel, scale the autonomy to start off driving, move it in a semi-autonomous way, and move it to a fully autonomous state by having operators do that for us.

The image is from Miso Robotics.

Following its recent launch of an equity crowdfunded Series E, Miso Robotics this week announced a dramatic expansion of its partnership with White Castle. The deal will bring the robotic arm to 100 locations.

The image is from TechCrunch.

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