Incredibly, there were banjos in the future. I would not have believed it!

And there were songs from the 1970’s: Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto [どうもありがとうミスターロボット]

There were also tons of ideas from teams from all over the world ( World Championship, Yup!), Intense competition–Robots fell over– teams cried (almost). 

The challenge we were faced with looks a bit like the new Amazon warehouse–but these skills of moving things and placing them in strategic positions will be needed for Mars when we build the first colony! Yes, we will build there.

The First Robotics Challenge we were competing in was composed of 2 sections, an autonomous section that relies on pre-programmed instructions, and a teleoperated period where drivers take control of the robots, in a fight to gain an upper hand on the scale – an essential (and main) way to score points. We climbed our way into the elimination rounds, and getting to quarterfinals, and came very close to moving forward. It was a great experience,

I understand how I will apply what I learned to construct living systems on earth, underwater and on Mars. Robotic systems can and will, and do right now build living systems. And in the near future, these robots will build systems to adapt to and overcome problems that were unforeseen. The Robots in the competition are the fathers and mothers of those that will be the first builders on mars. And these ‘children’ will be sentient. We don’t expect them to build a pyramid, but they will be able to build homes for astronauts a long way from home.