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American Morning
Whiz Kids
Aired May 19, 2003 - 07:52 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOPHIA CHOI, CNN ANCHOR: They are some of the world's most amazing and talented young people. Some 1,200 students from 36 countries took part in this year's Intel science and engineering fair held last weekend in Cleveland.
Sixteen-year-old Elena Glassman is one of the grand prize winners. Her project translates brain waves into data that can be read by an ordinary computer. And 17-year-old Collin Arnold also competed. He developed a robot designed for search-and-rescue operations. And Elena and Collin, both high school juniors, are here to share their genius with us this morning.
Thanks for being here.
COLLIN ARNOLD, INTEL SCIENCE FAIR COMPETITOR: Thank you.
CHOI: Let me start with you, Elena. Tell me what your project aims to do. Who does it try to help?
ELENA GLASSMAN, INTEL SCIENCE FAIR WINNER: Well, it turns that, of course, muscularly disabled can't use a keyboard or a mouse to interact the computer. Therefore, people are continually coming up with aids for them to interact with the Internet. One of the most amazing videos I have ever seen was of a man, who was paralyzed, wearing a helmet full of electrodes, so that he could use his brain waves to trigger muscle stimulators implanted in his arms, and he could pick up objects and move them across the table. It was at that point that I knew I wanted to investigate this area.
CHOI: And how does your program work?
GLASSMAN: Well, my computer program interprets brain waves as commands for a computer, not quite yet to muscle stimulators in someone's arms. So, it analyzes the frequency content from two electrodes, one over the left and right sides of the motor cortex right now, so that it can recognize the pattern and identify whether a new incoming brain wave from these two electrodes is from someone trying to move their left or their right hand.
CHOI: You won a pretty high-tech computer, plus $50,000 with this science fair. So, tell me what are you going to do with that money and the computer? More research?
GLASSMAN: Yes. Up until now, I've been using student versions and kind of stuff that perhaps they make available to college students, trials. But, now, with a little bit of funding, I might be able to just keep on going. CHOI: That is so cool.
Collin, you've got a pretty cool project yourself, a robot there. Tell me about your robot.
ARNOLD: For my science fair project, I was developing a walking robot to aid in search-and-rescue operations to find victims of building collapses and cave-ins. So, the first year of this project, basically I was developing mobility. Also, I'm going to have to have a lot more added to the project eventually to make it really able for search and rescue, like a camera or sound.
CHOI: All right, why don't you show us how this works?
ARNOLD: OK.
CHOI: And you came up with a leg design, as you were preparing to get this started, instead of a track design. Tell me as we watch this robot in action why you decided to do that.
ARNOLD: Well, the reason I decided to pick a leg design over a track design is basically because legs have the potential to be able to walk over obstacles, whereas track vehicles have to climb over them. In certain situations, such as loose gravel on an incline plane, a track vehicle might just slide or bog down, whereas a leg vehicle wouldn't. So, that's why I picked a leg vehicle.
CHOI: Real quickly, do both of you have patents on your ideas?
GLASSMAN: No.
ARNOLD: No.
GLASSMAN: We patent areas for patenting computer programs. It's very difficult, because almost as a game I tried to do that a while ago. But perhaps with the money that we've won, we can try to apply.
CHOI: All right. Well, we look forward to the completion of your projects one of these days.
Collin Arnold and Elena Glassman, thank you so much for joining us.
GLASSMAN: Thank you.
ARNOLD: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired May 19, 2003 - 07:52 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOPHIA CHOI, CNN ANCHOR: They are some of the world's most amazing and talented young people. Some 1,200 students from 36 countries took part in this year's Intel science and engineering fair held last weekend in Cleveland.
Sixteen-year-old Elena Glassman is one of the grand prize winners. Her project translates brain waves into data that can be read by an ordinary computer. And 17-year-old Collin Arnold also competed. He developed a robot designed for search-and-rescue operations. And Elena and Collin, both high school juniors, are here to share their genius with us this morning.
Thanks for being here.
COLLIN ARNOLD, INTEL SCIENCE FAIR COMPETITOR: Thank you.
CHOI: Let me start with you, Elena. Tell me what your project aims to do. Who does it try to help?
ELENA GLASSMAN, INTEL SCIENCE FAIR WINNER: Well, it turns that, of course, muscularly disabled can't use a keyboard or a mouse to interact the computer. Therefore, people are continually coming up with aids for them to interact with the Internet. One of the most amazing videos I have ever seen was of a man, who was paralyzed, wearing a helmet full of electrodes, so that he could use his brain waves to trigger muscle stimulators implanted in his arms, and he could pick up objects and move them across the table. It was at that point that I knew I wanted to investigate this area.
CHOI: And how does your program work?
GLASSMAN: Well, my computer program interprets brain waves as commands for a computer, not quite yet to muscle stimulators in someone's arms. So, it analyzes the frequency content from two electrodes, one over the left and right sides of the motor cortex right now, so that it can recognize the pattern and identify whether a new incoming brain wave from these two electrodes is from someone trying to move their left or their right hand.
CHOI: You won a pretty high-tech computer, plus $50,000 with this science fair. So, tell me what are you going to do with that money and the computer? More research?
GLASSMAN: Yes. Up until now, I've been using student versions and kind of stuff that perhaps they make available to college students, trials. But, now, with a little bit of funding, I might be able to just keep on going. CHOI: That is so cool.
Collin, you've got a pretty cool project yourself, a robot there. Tell me about your robot.
ARNOLD: For my science fair project, I was developing a walking robot to aid in search-and-rescue operations to find victims of building collapses and cave-ins. So, the first year of this project, basically I was developing mobility. Also, I'm going to have to have a lot more added to the project eventually to make it really able for search and rescue, like a camera or sound.
CHOI: All right, why don't you show us how this works?
ARNOLD: OK.
CHOI: And you came up with a leg design, as you were preparing to get this started, instead of a track design. Tell me as we watch this robot in action why you decided to do that.
ARNOLD: Well, the reason I decided to pick a leg design over a track design is basically because legs have the potential to be able to walk over obstacles, whereas track vehicles have to climb over them. In certain situations, such as loose gravel on an incline plane, a track vehicle might just slide or bog down, whereas a leg vehicle wouldn't. So, that's why I picked a leg vehicle.
CHOI: Real quickly, do both of you have patents on your ideas?
GLASSMAN: No.
ARNOLD: No.
GLASSMAN: We patent areas for patenting computer programs. It's very difficult, because almost as a game I tried to do that a while ago. But perhaps with the money that we've won, we can try to apply.
CHOI: All right. Well, we look forward to the completion of your projects one of these days.
Collin Arnold and Elena Glassman, thank you so much for joining us.
GLASSMAN: Thank you.
ARNOLD: Thank you.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
