 Yeah, science here on Think Tech. That's our middle name actually. And we're talking today about Community Matters. We're talking about the 2021 Lacey Beach Day of Discovery with Art Kimura of HIGP and Adria Fung also of HIGP in SOWES in the University of Hawaii Science Area at Manoa. Welcome to the show, Art. And Adria, nice to see you smiling faces. Thank you for the invitation, Jay. It's an honor to share the 20th anniversary of the astronaut Lacey Beach Day of Discovery that will be broadcast by YouTube on October 30th. So we're well on our way to developing the final product that will be delivered. As we all know, Lacey Beach was Hawaii's second astronaut who twice in a space shuttle had a distinguished career in Air Force including combat missions in Vietnam and flying with the U.S. Thunderbirds. And successfully flew twice in a space shuttle, logging many hours in space. I think we all remember Lacey fondly because of his relationship with Ninoa Thompson as well. And around the world voyage that Hokulea took was actually Lacey's idea to Nino and his father many years ago. So that voyage completion fulfilled that dream that they both had of sail Hokulea. I'm very lucky this year that we have a new full-time robotics engineer in our office, Adria Fung. I first met Adria as a high school senior at Sacred Hearts Academy when she was a team captain of the robotics team. I'm sure Adria can share a little bit more as to how she pursued her career path because of her involvement in robotics. But Adria received two NASA summer internships through our office, went off to college and got her degree in robotics engineering and a master's degree in educational technology here at the University of Hawaii. I've been teaching at St. Louis School Middle School for four years, developing a world-class robotics program at the middle level taking her team to Asian championships as well as the world championships and just in a claimed program that they operated there. So we're very fortunate to have Adria on board as part of our team now at the Hawaii Space Grant Consortium. Okay, Adria, I promised you an opportunity to rebut everything that Art said so you can add or subtract as you wish right now. Well, thanks for having me on on the show today and pretty much what Art said is all correct anyway. But yeah, I grew up here in Honolulu, Hawaii, went to Sacred Hearts, was part of the robotics team there when it first started. So I was a freshman at Sacred Hearts and then pretty much Art brought McKinley robotics team to come and demonstrate at our gym there and I was like, oh, robots are kind of cool. I kind of wanted to try to try it out and pretty much, you know, fell in love with it and all and I knew by sophomore year I wanted to go into engineering. But I think it wasn't until senior year that I was like, I really wanted to learn more about robotics and actually pursue a degree in robotics engineering. And so I ended up going to the other side of the United States, went to Massachusetts, went to Worcester Polytechnic Institute, was there for four years, got my robotics engineering degree, an amazing program there, it's heavily project based. And so we learned a lot of engineering concepts, you know, we took our math courses, our physics courses, electrical, mechanical, computer engineering. And then we actually got a chance to apply that knowledge in various projects. And so I was able to do a project in Hong Kong. And it also did another my senior project back at Worcester Polytechnic. And so I think that really helps to bring sort of that application to life. So we weren't just building robots, just because it was fun. It's more so, you know, developing engineering solutions or help solve community problems. So that's kind of what I wanted to bring back to Hawaii was that knowledge and be able to instill that in my students. And so that's why instead of going towards the engineering industry, I came back home to pursue a career in education. Yeah, good move. Can Hawaii be a center of robotic education and development? Oh, I definitely think so. I mean, a lot of people think that robotics is such a specialized field, but it's something that you can, it's a vehicle in order to solve problems. And so pretty much essentially is we want to be able to solve all these community problems that we have here, whether it be clean water, clean energy, pollution, but you know, robotics is just the means for that. And so being able to teach the students that you can apply robotics to just about any type of field in order to solve a problem, I think that's kind of the first stepping stone in getting the students interested in robotics and using that technology to help our communities here in Hawaii. Wow, Art, you know, I'm so jealous. Aren't you jealous too? I mean, Avia is going to form the future. She's going to put Hawaii on the map as a robotics education and development place. God knows what kinds of incredible discoveries and projects we'll have out here. Aren't you jealous too? Yes, I think we're in a good place because just by good fortune, Avia is coming into our office when we have two other young, very young engineers also working side by side with her. One, a PhD in robotics engineering. The other actually is designing satellites right now. So I think we're in a good place. I think the future is very bright. Yeah, good. I think if you happen to pick the right thing at the right time, maybe you're no kidding. The world is going there. You know, so many, so many shows I see on cable television and with so many documentaries about this, it's just, it's going to take us into the future. And if we can be prepared for it, all we need now is capital. All we need now is to keep those kids, okay? And I guess that brings us to, you know, the parameters of the Lacey Beach program. So Art, you know, why did HIGP establish the program in the first place? What does it do? What is it intended? Who is it intended to affect and encourage and educate? So 20 years ago, Nainua Thompson and I approached Punahou School since Lacey and Nainua were graduates of Punahou, who host an event so that we could bring the community together, have the community support a day in which we would honor the legacy of Lacey Beach. And Punahou graciously accepted the opportunity. And for 17 years, we hosted live in-person Lacey Beach Day at Punahou School. In its 18th year, we moved the program to Kamehameha School for a year of in-person. And then last year due to the pandemic, we pivoted it to a virtual event, which I estimate has been seen on YouTube by probably about 5,000 people, not only in Hawaii, but from Japan all the way to the East Coast of the US to Canada. So I think our reach exceeded our expectations in many ways. Because of the pandemic again this year, no guarantee we could do in-person. We decided to do another virtual event with some lessons learned from last year. But we have a great lineup this year. I'm very proud of the lineup we have, especially because it's very women-centered. We always are trying to encourage young women and men to go into STEM careers. So I think we have some tremendous speakers that will portray how they got into this pathway into STEM. Like what? I mean, what kind of talks would they give? Is it all autobiographical or is it substantive? Well, in some cases, they explain how they got into their career paths. We have, for example, a welcome from astronaut, Megan McArthur, who's actually on the space station. She flew to the space station in the second crewed SpaceX mission, and she's going to be in space for six months, so she's still up there. But she does a nice welcome message, and I found out in doing some research on her, she was actually born in Honolulu, although she claims California as her home state where she grew up. But looking at her background, she got a PhD in oceanography, but prior to that, had a bachelor's degree in Aerospace Engineering. Another welcome message will be from Brienne Yamada. Brienne is just a, I first met her as a student at the University of Hawaii. She was president of the Engineering Council at the College of Engineering and helped organize and run a robotics tournament there. But as a graduate in electrical engineering, Brienne got a job at the Hawaiian Electric Company. She's a design systems engineer, and she's this year's Cherry Blossom Queen. So she's such a well-rounded individual. Yeah, I think so. We've got it all. How about you? Next year you have to do that, Adrienne. Never mind. In our keynote this year, we always want to try and focus on local born and bred STEM professionals. So Dr. Heather Coluna, who was born and raised in Pahoa, got her bachelor's degree at the University of Hawaii Hilo, into UH Manoa, got a PhD in astronomy, and now is an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii in astronomy. So just those three, Adrienne can explain the other women that we are featuring this year. Yeah, Adrienne, please do. Yeah, we have a couple of so-called ads or commercials by a lot of young women professionals who are currently in STEM fields. And so for example, we have Amber E. Mai Hong. She's one of the ones that Art had introduced before. She was from Waikea High School, got her degree in electrical engineering at UH Manoa. Is currently a satellite engineer across from me at the Hawaii Space Flight Lab. She, in this year, she led a gear state grant, and she was able to get middle school and high school teachers and students, cube satellite kits for them to build in their own classrooms. Another ad that we have is from Christina Felicitas. She was pretty much in the same year as me back in high school, but she went to Farrington High School. We met when we were competing on a robotics team together. She went to UH Manoa, got her electrical engineering degree, and also did her master's through WPI, so the same undergrad college as me. And right now she's at Northrop Grumman, designing pretty much RF systems and microwave design. And so we have a pretty good lineup of women engineers and scientists here in our program. How about men? Do you have men? Are there any men in the program? We have some men doing some workshops as well, so we have Chamonaut University. They're I am a scientist program. They have a couple of professors there, men who are pretty much going to introduce some really cool cooking workshops demonstrating principles and chemistry. So you'll look forward to seeing, you know, how to make ice cream or butter using chemistry science. It's really cool. Interesting. So you want to show them a little science and you want to show them a little space art. So what's the connection between the space lab and the Lacey Beach program on October 30th? I always tell people when I do family science nights or community events that you cannot major in astronaut in college. You know, if you want to be an astronaut, you have to major in some solid STEM athlete. So it could be in science, it could be in engineering, it could be a doctor. And today, because of the people they fly, at first it was all test pilots, but today they fly a diverse group of individuals. And as we saw just recently, four ordinary citizens got to fly in space in orbit around the earth through that commercial SpaceX application inspiration for. So the possibility of going into space for young people is much more real today than it was back then. So this day is meant to hopefully catalyze students' interests and make them dream, perhaps. And you never know how it could touch a young person in just listening to other people talk about their adventures. Let me drill down a little bit on that. You know, up till now, from about 1968 or 69 on the moon, until now it's all been government, NASA doing it, you know, Florida, government money and all that, and hiring all the scientists and the researchers, what have you, engineers. But now it's different. Now you have private companies, individuals, what have you, doing exploration into space. That means offering jobs and research and engineers and the like to build those rockets. They don't get built by themselves. So are you saying now that looking forward that the people who come to the Lacey Beach Discovery Day have a real prospect of working for private industry? Is that what it looks like? If I'm one of them and I decide I want to do that, can I actually get a job? I think that's true. I think years ago when we first started this program, we could only talk about a career pathway with NASA. But today, with all the private companies involved in space exploration, there is a much more real possibility of being involved in the space program. And also we should not forget the military that's expanding their presence in space with Space Force and so forth. So there'll be jobs there as well. Yeah, it's pretty exciting. So there's a conflation, isn't there, Adra, about space and robotics? I mean, if you're in space, you really want robotics. And if you're building robotics, you want to know the lessons that we have learned in space. So as a robotics engineer, you have an interest in any event within your discipline of connecting it with space, don't you? Oh, for sure. I mean, we saw a lot of rovers already that went to Mars. You can think of a cube satellite as a little miniature robot that's out there collecting data. And so, like I said, there's so many applications with robotics. We don't necessarily always have to send astronauts up. We can send robots, instruments up to collect the data for us. Or we can deploy robots out to different planets in order to collect that data. So definitely robotics has a lot of applications with space exploration. It must be very exciting to be in robotics. And I'm just wondering what kind of projects you contemplate when you wake up at three o'clock in the morning thinking creatively about what robotics can do for us. Do you ever wake up at three o'clock? I do. Thinking about things that robotics can do for us. Projects that nobody ever imagined before. Labor-saving devices. Devices that can save the world, really, to make it easier for everyone. And of course, science in general seeks to do that. But robotics is the translation of science into something physical right now, right here, as close to you as your neighbor. So my question is, what do you think about it three in the morning? What are your creative and aspirational ideas? Well, I mean, back then when I was a teacher at St. Louis at 3 a.m., I was pretty much sleeping from exhaustion of teaching all day. But I kind of let my students pretty much think about that. For me, as an educator, I try to think about how better teach robotics. The students had to better give them the engineering tools so that, you know, they're the ones that are going out to look for those problems in order to solve them. And so, like you said, for example, our robotics team before was supposed to go to Japan for a World Robot Summit. And so part of that competition, they had to develop a robotic technology in order to help with something in their own home. And so my team at the time actually developed a clothes-folding robot. And so they actually built a prototype and all. We got baby clothes and they pretty much were able to build something that could fold clothes easily. So anything is possible. In my library, I have a book of short stories, plays as it were, and that I read when I was in junior high school. You can imagine how I want to go that was. And one of them is called Rodman's Universal Robots. R-U-R. It was written by an author, interestingly enough, from somewhere in Eastern Europe. And it was a story of robots. And it was written in like 1922. Not kidding. And some people think that this play, R-U-R, was actually the creation of the term robots, believe it or not. So, all right, where does robotics fit in the larger picture of HIGP? We talked a little bit about the conflation of robotics and space. Where does it fit in all the science that you guys do over there? It's one of many things, but somehow it is special, right? Many of our scientists are involved in like lunar exploration or Mars exploration, Earth observations. And all of these involve satellites or rovers collecting data. We've had some scientists in our building that actually are part of the Mars rover missions that they determine where the targets will be for the rover to go to. I think one advantage, maybe unique opportunity, Adrian and I have had, is we were able to attend and see the World Robot Summit and also the International Robotics Exposition in Japan. Can you imagine two football fields of hundreds of robots applied to every aspect of our civilization, whether it's home care, hospitalization, agriculture, industry? And so we see the possibilities of what our students can aspire to become in innovation. I want it. I would think about COVID, for example, you know. You don't want the medical professionals to get too close to spend too much time with them. And COVID won't be the end of pandemics either. It'll happen again. It'll all be respiratory. So if I give you a robot that can handle at least some of the tasks that are required to treat patients in ICUs, I'm really doing everyone a favor. And I'm keeping people safe. And by the way, they don't have to look like people. They can look like who knows what. They can look like anything as long as they do the job. And what you study in robotics and school at HIGP, those things could be very useful in developing this kind of thing. Do you think about that at three in the morning? Yes. I think in children's minds, they have the opportunity to innovate that maybe we as adults are kind of unable to do. So we want to unleash that possibility for them. Yeah, absolutely. Well, so what, you know, Adria, are you going to speak with all these other speakers and tell them your life story and what turns you on about robotics and HIGP and physics and what have you? Well, not during the Lacy Beach Day event that I'll be saved for another time. Okay. We just want to, we really want to highlight all of the STEM professionals that are there. I really want to know how you are doing your outreach on this. Who are you intending to bring in on it? And how are you reaching them in order to get them to view it, get them to sign up for it? What we found last year is not as many people watch it live, but then because it's archived on YouTube, we've got viewings. We still continue to get viewings on it because it turns out it's become a rich resource for educators and for parents because there's some really cool workshops that are included in this. Because one of our rules is the workshops have to include things that you can use in your home. So it's nothing where you'd have to go out and buy a chemistry set or anything like that. So it continues to serve a value for people. So who are you, who are you reaching out to? You want grade school kids? You want high school kids? You want people who have already finished and around the workforce and want to have a better career? Who are you addressing your reach program to? Primarily to students in probably the target range would be grades four to eight. However, we have had younger kids and older students. An example is last year, we reached out to a Super Science High School in Ehime, Japan. They gathered 90s children on a weekend, on a Sunday for them at 7 a.m. their time, and they watched the LAC Beach Day. So that was an example, one viewing, but there were multiple people there. They received pretty large recognition in their community. And then all the way to Florida. Last year was the first time LAC's family actually got to be part of a LAC Beach Day. They have not been able to attend before. Well, if you do it by virtual, you can do it that way. And my question to you guys is, now that you've punted virtual last year and you're about to do it virtual this year, on October 30, you might want to continue to do it virtual on into the future, or a hybrid of some virtual and some live, whatever, mix and match media kind of thing. What are your thoughts about that? Do you think you will continue to do it virtual even after the pandemic? I think I would like to see it go back live. But as you mentioned, there should be a portion of it that will go out on some kind of virtual network. Because I don't think there's anything better than for someone to shake hands with an astronaut that we bring in as a keynote or to meet Nino Thompson or to hear his words directly. I think it's very meaningful. And obviously the hands-on workshops are really the key to maybe getting students to be inspired in STEM. So I think that's really important. You know, Adrienne, my three in the morning experience includes things like designing a robotic camera, a really good USB camera that can be controlled by the guy at the other end. And I put this in a little cardboard box and I send it, for example, from you to Art. Art opens the box, he connects the camera to his computer, all he's got to do is plug it in. And now you at the home base, you can control how the camera is functioning. You can control the light, control the focus, you can control all these things remotely on your computer. And he has the benefit of it. And he looks better. You can even change his sound. What about that? Why don't you guys, you know, think up and have a big logo on an HIGP, right? And you can send it away to Florida, whatever, and have the people in Florida use it. And then when they're done, you put it back in the box and send it to you postage prepaid. Wouldn't that be a great product? One of the features we had last year in the Lacey Beach Day, following the Lacey Beach Day, we hosted five live field trips for students who had logged on to our questionnaire. And so we invited them to places like the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab live. So it's really opened up opportunities, I think, as you pointed out, way bigger than what we did locally. Yeah, well, let's see what happens. And we will see what happens on October 30. And how can people sign up for the October 30 program? Andrea, are you the one who wrote the website? Well, all of the information is on our website. So it's at spacegrant.hawaii.edu. There's no registration needed like in past year. So anyone can just log in. It's going to be streamed on YouTube on that day. So teachers, students, parents, families can pretty much just log on to YouTube that day and watch our program. And then also, we're going to also host a live remote tournament as well. So it's a robotics tournament. We have 16 teams from International Canada and also in California competing virtually as well. So even our robotics tournaments have on virtual this year. That's great. How long is it going to last? Well, the least of each day program will last about an hour and a half. And then our robotics tournament will pretty much be streamed all day. Oh, good. All right. That's a great way to do it. So, Art, we're going to watch a little film now that you guys gave us. Can you introduce the film? What is this about? And what does it show? And why did you make it? Well, A.J. put this together. She did it last year and it was a way to promote the upcoming event. So she took snippets from our various videos that we got and this is the outcome and this is this year's version of it. So if you can show it now, that'll be great. Okay. We're going to show it right now. A.J., you can talk about it afterward. I'm speaking about it as somebody who makes movies all the time, A.J. and that was good. So what would you add to that film? What should we take away from it? Well, as you saw, there are a lot of snippets as to what is upcoming in that least each day promo. We have our guest speakers like astronaut MacArthur and also we have our commercials and ads from our women STEM professionals. And like you saw, there are a lot of cool workshops that are coming up like squishy circuits by Hawaiian Electric. There's microgravity by the Hawaii Space Flight Lab. And so families and students can pretty much retake in these types of workshops in their own home using their own materials that they can find. So, Art, are you going to open the program on October 30? I will not be on the video, not at all. You're so shy. Art is shy, Andrea. Me either. I'm not on it. So that's why it's such a treat to talk to you guys. The guys behind the scenes putting this together, that's great. Art, can you give us a sort of a closing message on what you would want people to do and think about? Not only in terms of the Lacey Veitch program, but in terms of appreciating science at UH, at SOWEST, at HIGP, and in Hawaii as a new and hopefully nourishing sector of the economy. I think what we found over the years is we have such a rich resource of community professionals and organizations that are willing to contribute and eager to contribute to help the next generation get inspired in their career path, whatever it may be. And so we're very grateful to all of these organizations, individuals who come together to bring these kinds of programs together. It's not just the Lacey Veitch Day. We have hundreds of volunteers who come to our robotics events to act as judges or referees. And so we need to honor these individuals. Their commitment to the next generation is really high and we're very encouraged by that. And we're encouraged by the young people who have that aspiration to go into this really high-end career. Yeah, and Andrea, you know, not everybody who's not everybody is interested in science is young. There are people out there who are interested in science and not so young. Is there an age limit on this program? Definitely not. It's just whoever is curious about science or technology or just, you know, taking something from their own home and just putting it together and trying things out, that's kind of what the message that we want to send in our Lacey Veitch Day program. So what is your message to the young people who might see this video, who might sign up and attend the program virtually and in years to come, maybe, you know, in person? What is your message, as I'm making a guess here, as a relatively young person? What is your message to them? Well, kind of like what I tell my former students is pretty much, you never know unless you try, right? Even if you don't know if you're going to like robotics or science or engineering, it, I mean, it won't hurt to just try it out. Even if you have the best design for robots, you don't know unless you try it out, prototype it, build it. If it doesn't work, then like, it doesn't work and scrap the idea and move on to the next one. Yeah, that applies to life in general too, by the way. Thank you, Andrea. Thank you, Art, for setting this up. Really appreciate it. Every year, it sort of demarks our September calendar that you come around, and we really appreciate your participating in our shows. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Art, and I'll see you in the next video.