 Two West Point cadets recently spent time learning about military robotics and software programming at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. The U.S. Military Academy and the laboratory collaborate each summer to support the institution's academic individual advanced development program. Cadets Benjamin Baumgartner and Devin Men work closely with her mentor, ARL Aerospace engineer Raymond Von Walde, to program robots in a unique micro factory. At West Point they let you basically build your own summers and usually people go along with like what's in their major like I'm electrical engineering and he's a mechanical so they select some sort of academic opportunity that kind of goes along with that. The cadets used a simple coding language on Microsoft Notepad to send instructions to a fingernail-sized piece of metal that levitated while moving above a magnetic field. The robot would pick up graphite materials and using water tension assemble a microstructure. The exercise required logic and common sense to use the shortest amount of code possible to accomplish the desired results. I'm always impressed with how quickly cadets rise to the challenge that I give them. They were confronted with a programming a micro factory that they had never seen before and were able to maneuver the robot around very quickly. Von Walde has been mentoring West Point cadets at the laboratory since 2000. Their future army leaders I was once told to treat the cadets as if they were going to be heading the laboratory at some point so I show them the respect that they're do as a upcoming officers. During the final week of their visit the cadets joined a training class on unmanned aerial vehicles with about 30 active duty soldiers and marines. Both cadets had the opportunity to pilot a UAV and program it for an autonomous flight. I've learned a lot about what I came here to learn and a little more. I did a lot more coding than I thought it would be doing and I've been working with robots which is really cool. As an army officer I think understanding how all these mechanisms work and how everything fits together is really important. Earlier this year Brigadier General Cindy R. Jeb, the U.S. Military Academy Dean of Academics toured the laboratory and met with ARL leadership. ARL director Phillip Percanti told her that the relationship between the organizations has been of great value to the laboratory as well as the future army officers. We want future officers to understand our science and technology capabilities and our role in building and equipping the future force he said. For ARL TV, I'm David McNally.