This is robots weekly number three.

We have Raquel Villas, also known on the Internet as Rock Pot comes from us More out of the robotic side into the node world.

I made her big debut on the conference, seen at this year's jazz comp US 2013 down Amelia in Florida with a presentation called a i dot Js.

There's a some title to that.

I think it's something like learning to love the nuclear bomb or something.

I don't know.

It was absolutely amazing.

Great time.

The video is out.

We will have it in the show notes and, uh, with me, like always, is Matt Hamasaki Matt saying a little the nice people.

Hello, everyone.

Um, awesome to be here again.

It's great toe.

Have Raquel here.

Especially since I learned a lot from her at her Jess.

Calm presentation.

Especially about her history.

So Yeah, it was awesome.

So why don't we Why don't we get started?

Ah, right now, looking at you.

Gotta tell us a little bit about yourself.

Sure.

Hi, everyone.

I'm rock back on Twitter for Callen person on, and I am a roboticist turned Notre.

I am have been a practicing roboticists for over a decade.

Basically means I've been building robots since high school, and, uh, and now I play around with node.

I work at sauce Labs in the mobile are indeed team.

And, uh, not much to say about that, except that, you know, we're doing awesome stuff.

Yeah, awesome.

That's that's really cool.

Ah, so in your presentation, you talked a little bit about some of your early days.

How did you get started in robotics?

Uh, so basically I So I started high school or yet started high school.

Want to be a filmmaker?

Believe it or not, I want to be the next Steven Spielberg.

And I was like, Yes, I'm totally gonna build movies in a move to California and win Oscars and things like that.

And then I saw presentation at a local university.

Uh, that basically featured a bunch of different women engineers, and one of them was a mechanical engineer, and she was like, these other engineers were really awesome and stuff, but I got to go this and she, like, whips out this robot and puts it on the table on this.

Like what?

It was like Whoa, You can totally do that.

I didn't even notice that.

I had no idea that you could build robots.

Like I thought that was just something that you were with that, um, And from that point on, it was literally like a light switch.

And I think I think maybe you later that day maybe the next day.

I can't imagine that.

I waited more than 24 hours.

I asked my parents.

It was in November.

It was like for Christmas.

I want Christmas to come early.

And I bought a Lego Mindstorms kit.

Put me out.

That's awesome.

Especially toe have.

Ah, a female role model is in there.

You know, it's not just guys playing with robots, but anyone can.

Yeah, Yeah, it was awesome.

And so I basically started my career with Lego Mindstorms was then eventually worked my way up to everything from robotic vehicles like automated cars to, uh, using industrial robots to do biomechanical research.

Thio, uh, just working on all sorts of things.

Those, uh, those projects did you just did on your own during college, or were they tied with.

I have.

So because of the nature of the robotics industry, Uh, most of those things I was not able to do by myself all the Lego Mindstorms stuff.

I totally did by myself.

Not a problem.

But, um, all the bigger robots had to be with some sort of either industry or college.

So I've done work at NASA, J P L.

I've done work at the University of Duisburg, Essen and Germany.

I've done work, um, at applied minds, which is this little shop in Southern California.

Um, and I've done some stuff that the University of Joe Genera in Italy.

Um, and then, uh, also did a little bit of stuff at M i t.

Lincoln Laboratory.

But that was more outreach than, like, big projects.

Ah, I'm sure there's something I'm just Yeah, sounds pretty varied.

So what kind of what kind of programming interface?

What kind of things did you do programing wise against those robots?

Eso in terms of programming.

So are you asking like, more like languages, or like like actual, like, algorithmic type stuff?

Well, kind of a mixture of both.

That is how did you approach it?

Sure.

Um, so most The time, especially with something is large, is like a robotic vehicle.

You can't program the whole thing by yourself.

You have be on a team.

Um and so, uh, basically, I've been kind of lucky.

I guess you could call it that.

You have always, like, found a spot on the team and just had some say you own this ticket.

But most of the projects have been other C c++ or python as the main programming languages.

And, um, those make a lot of sense.

It's nice, you know, low level enough room, otherwise that things are nice and fast you threatening while the lock.

Um, but for those projects, I've done things like, uh So I've done some computer vision stuff I've done, but mostly have done half planning.

So if you imagine, Uh eh, you know, you have some world and you want your robot to navigate within that world, uh, figuring out the decision making process to properly navigate from point A to point B.

Uh, that's being it's kind of most my my experience, Um, which is interesting because it really varies depending on the type of robot.

What kind of algorithms you using and stuff like that.

Right?

Gotcha.

Very cool.

Yeah, it was kind of what I I I wanted to kind of cover both the languages and the algorithms because, yeah, it's it's all very, very complex.

Especially with the move.

It's stuff that I studied back in in my college days as well.

So very, very cool and so kind of two to flash forward.

How did all of this kind of tie in with bringing you to node?

Um uh, so So my my my way.

I got to know it is kind of a special little been Basically, I got tired of doing the academic thing.

Um, it's there's a lot of in terms of academia, it costs a lot of money.

And in order to move up in academia, you have to get more degrees right on.

You have to get research grants and you have to do all that stuff.

And that's what papers after paper after paper.

Exactly.

And I basically got to the point where I was just like, I'm tired of this.

He's gonna work on stuff that's fun.

Whenever I want to work on it and not have to deal with all of this.

Um, so I've got some opportunities to just kind of totally switch gears, do like a startup and just kind of play around with, like, managing people and stuff like that.

I thought maybe I would be happy with that.

Um right then I basically found myself a start brand of money, which happens on then I was just like, um okay, now what?

And I wanted to work.

I was living in Charlotte, North Carolina, the time, and, uh, all my cool friends were working this one company, so I said, Okay, how do I get a job at the company?

And so I talked to the CEO and he said, Learn node.

I said okay.

And so I did.

So I learned Node and then basically was doing this whole note thing for a while.

And then I heard about Chris and Rick.

Uh, Chris Williams.

Rick Waldron, who you probably both know from last week.

You were there.

You didn't see it, uh, and and they were trying to this thing with robots, and I was like, That's so adorable.

It's cute.

And like Rick, have this little, uh oh, a little robot that you presented it at note calm and it was cute.

Wasn't like, really basic object avoidance.

And I was like these air super adorable.

But there's so much more that they could do if we just apply.

It's an extra robotics principles.

And then I was that note cough summer Camp 2012 which is where I met Chris.

And, uh, I was talking to somebody else about like, Well, there's no good Matrix module in N.

P M.

And I was like, Well, I could build that like, really easily.

And I was trying to figure out how do I get into this whole note community because I was like, I know nothing about core and Streams kind of scare me and there's, like, a changing in the next row.

Exactly.

I'm sorry.

That's what I've been dealing with today, but our wheels.

But basically it was It was just like, uh, some was like, Yeah, we need a good matrix module And I was like, Okay, well, I can build that.

So that was my mind Vector and Pam module and then, uh, and then Chris de Ems me.

And it's like I hear you like robots and I was like, Yeah, who doesn't like robots?

And you just like, maybe you should think about speaking about robots like I want to speak.

I don't about robots.

And he was like, No, no, you should speak about robots.

So, uh, but I made a condition that it was a mean condition.

I made I ask you not to speak of any other events up until that point.

It's like a little as you phrased it.

Huge robotics.

Yeah.

Uh, yeah.

No, it was And it was a great presentation.

You came as the organizer of dance company was arguably one of the hardest ones.

Just for because we had, like, a whole town escape and hide from the audience.

And then all of a sudden, it shows up.

We gotta cover with a blanket or run around finding a blanket.

And, uh, you get up there and I'm like, Jimmy and I had to present it up on the screen.

You won this year's award that we don't give out for the most complex presentation, but it was super fun.

I was just like like when I got off the stage, I was just, like, completely, just like Oh, my God, This is amazing.

And it is all the time.

And then the next day, we had no bots day from the first note box event.

And that was just like you could more.

And I was like, All right, that's it.

I'm sold.

Good lots, community.

Let's do this.

Do you wanna give him a quick description of sort of what that was like and how that worked?

You were one of the four core organizer's that started it and sort of got it going.

I know that there we had Daniel Shaw on a bit ago to do the International note Bots Day.

But just so that first event, how that all went, Yeah.

Yeah.

So basically, what happened?

Waas, uh, we had a whole bunch of that.

We had a huge room full of depths.

Who I would say probably about.

I'd say 50% of them had never touched any hard work at all whatsoever on then.

Another 25 to 30% of them, uh, head on Li like, dabbled in it.

And so, like, most people didn't really know about hardware at all.

It certainly never used Java script for for any hardware type stuff.

And, uh uh So thanks to our amazing sponsors, Toby, we had, like, this huge lineup of just all the components you could possibly imagine from servos like regular servos to continuous servos Thio L E D's thio sauntering irons, Ted.

Oh, my I mean, like, I can't even describe all the pieces that we had, but they were just like it just looked like, um, like, eight of fruit exploded in this room and people just kind of came in.

And we're like, Okay, go build stuff.

And they're like, What way had a few bot box tohave a sumo stew about competition And that worked out really well because there are a few people were like, Brava I can build on this as opposed to having to start from scratch.

But there are some people who just had these crazy ideas and just went with them on, and we had Chris quickly.

Come on.

We have, like, six or seven hours for people that just kind of hack on stuff.

I mean, it depends on whether they took a lunch break and I got there on time.

I mean it.

If they got there on time they would have had from 9 a.m. till 6 p.m. You work pretty much free will at that point.

Um, yeah.

So which was really, really nice, as opposed Thio say, like a no calm where we did eight sessions of what essentially turned out to be 20 or 30 minutes each.

People just kind of hack on stuff, uh, which both situations were really valuable, but had a very, very different outcome.

Right?

One was just let me introduce you to know Box and Johnny five and had a kind of put together using a bread board to hook up in led in a button.

Whereas it jazz confit waas The sky's the limit.

Here are all the pieces you could possibly need.

Go build something awesome.

Let us know if you need help.

Um, and the things that came out of that, uh, that that day were just incredible.