i'm robert handa, your host for our show here on nbc bay area and cozi-tv, today we focus on the upcoming tech challenge. we start with an overview of this prestigious engineering design competition, a signature program of the tech museum of innovation. we profile some of the local teens with many asian american and pacific islander members including the science squad from fremont. next, the fire ninjas from an elementary school in milpitas and finally, trampoline because of their gymnastics prowess and also they're in chemistry honors classes together. a few of the teens are focused

today. the tech challenge is one of the big evnlts in silicon valley, and this year's tech challenge has a record level of participation with more than 700 teens from the bay area and as far away as oregon. joining me is abbey, the senior director of the tech challenge from the tech museum of innovation. she's a fully credentials teacher and lectures at the graduate teaching program and last year was named to the silicon valley business journal's annual 40 under 40 list. >> so glad to be here. >> on any other show, being under 40 would make you the youngest guest. not going to happen today. give us an overview of people who don't know all of the details. >> the tech challenge is an engineering design competition. students work in teams and we give them a completely different real-world problem they're working on. this year, it's kind of a slowback to the first challenge in 1988, and it's going to be a

lot of fun. >> they have to come out of the ravine. >> they have to cross two ravines. one they have to go up eight inches and kind of the catch is they have to take everything with them. they can't leave anything behind. so that is really challenging. >> i always thought that is what was interesting, it's not like a science fair where everybody puts together some type of project. everyone is trying to find the same solution. >> tell us about some of the participants and the diversity we see in the members. >> we have almost 2800 students this year. and a huge variety, i think 45% girls. and over 40% of our students come from low-income schools. a really diverse group of students here locomy and further away. and we're really lucky to get to work with lots of teachers and lots of diverse communities to get them engaged in this type of learning. >> really great way to introduce this whole world to them, right? >> it is. it's really fun because it's

hands-on and they get to try things out and go through a lot of iterations. it's pretty amazing the stuff they do. our team leaves completely inspired by the things they create. >> they really start from scratch. you give them the problem. they have to come up with from step one the solution, right? nobody is giving them sort of a guide or anything like that. >> no, they pretty much make it themselves. they can use whatever materials they want. they put it together themselves. we see the whole gambit. there will be people who build things out of cardboard and duct tape, robots, everything in between. they get to decide how to attack the problem. >> it seems you might have a problem deciding who came up with the best one. how do the judges figure out who came up with the best solution? >> so we have a group that are called our head judges. there's about ten of them. they're the ones who help design the challenge so they work on the project all year. they give hundreds of hours all year to the project and they create the score sheets and train the hundreds of volunteers who come to be judges and they

have a details, very secretive process. they're evaluated equally based on their journal, how they documented all the work they have done. a third of the score is the interview with the judges. they can talk about what they have is done, the brainstorming, the process, the iteration, and the third part is the challenge. >> it's interesting because it's not just the science. you're helping them learn how to present things and project themselves. >> to be an engineer, you need communication skills, you need to work with a team, listen to other people. those are things they're practicing. >> looking forward to hearing from some of the members. >> they're going to be great. >> thank you very much for being here. well, the tech challenge presented by dell will be at the tech museum of innovation in downtown san jose on april 29th and 30th. coming up, we profile some

teams. first up, science squad. stay with us. let's go, she's a dog.

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and welcome back. our first team we're highlightingen our tech challenge show is science squad. a weekend stem team made up of fifth and sixth graders in fremont. with us, cameron chen at the end, fifth grader karina chen, also from warm springs, and agliea in the middle. thank you for being here. now, tell me a little bit. cameron, give me an idea, how exciting is the tech challenge here for students? >> it's a good learning experience. and i heard from other people that you learn a lot and have a lot of fun doing it. >> looking forward to it? >> yeah. >> how about for you? has it been exciting being part of a team? >> yeah, so far, i have been having a lot of fun building with my friends and learning a lot. >> i understand science squad is

made up of a couple teams. you're not part of this project here. tell us what we're seeing and how it works. >> so, this basically starts out folded like that, and this is down here on the smaller piece of wood. and it pulls this back string to the pull of the bridge. and it pulls on the front string and releasing the back string to slowly pull itself across, and once it reaches the end, it reverses and releases this and pulls on this to slowly retract the bridge. >> for had ravine problem here. give me an idea here. what was maybe the biggest obstacle that you as a team had to overcome to make this work? >> one obstacle i think was on how to attach the string. so we had several ideas. one idea was using inertia.

>> we had the problem of driving forward and suddenly stopping. we were worried if it might fall off the table, so we had to use a guide. but then we found that it might be more difficult. so we instead used these some sort of wheel things and then this swirly lego piece. and so it would wrap the string, tightening and loosening if you want to go straight or backwards. >> cameron, do most of the teams go through a lot of prototypes before they come up with the right one? >> yeah, a lot of times in testing and prototypes before they finally settle on a final design they're going to use. >> how important is it in terms of the brainstorming part of this? do people have different areas of expertise or is everybody equal and contributing? >> everybody is contributing

because we all want to learn. and basically, our squad is just to learn about engineering and science. so we all do a little bit of everything to learn. >> how about for you? what did you get out of working on this project? what was the most important thing for you? >> especially since our team is pretty big. especially mine, it's six people, it's kind of hard to control everyone. so i learned that it's important to communicate a lot and make sure everyone knows what everyone else is doing. >> is that hard? is that hard to become part of a team? >> it might be in the beginning. like, you're not very familiar about what you're doing. you might get angry really easily. but at the end, you feel really familiar with what you're doing, and you might not make as many mistakes as you did before. i think that helps a lot. >> yeah. that's a big part of this, right? not just the end product but the process. >> yeah. >> cameron, did you feel that way? did you feel like a different, maybe a little more confident

after you worked on a team and had an important role? >> i think after we started, i think it was easier to work together. >> yeah. >> cameron, how difficult is it to sort of figure out when one person has proposed a solution or an idea and somebody else has one. how do you kind of hash that out? >> well, we're always open to letting people share their ideas. but sometimes we discuss some of it, and maybe if we think one is better, you always want to make sure the person who had an idea that we thought wasn't as good, they understand or sometimes maybe you combine the ideas. >> yeah. >> to make a better idea. >> very good. are you happy with this? >> i'm very happy with it. >> all right. did you name it? does it have a name? >> we came up with several names. one is the executioner. if you rotate it, the long piece

looks like it's getting ready to chop a head off. >> who came up with the executioner? >> it was in a book a few of us read. >> hey, good luck. i think it looks like to me it's going to work well. so congratulations on even just coming up with something that looks as impressive as it does. thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> thank you. well, next up, the fire ninjas, as our show on the tech challenge continues.

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doctor's appointments and school drop-offs late nights early mornings you wouldn't have it any other way but as they grow you can too gcu's online degree program puts you first so you can make the most of your time find your purpose at grand canyon university welcome back. our next team up is the fire nin ninjas. they met in school and with us, our team leader, fifth grader, cara leah rankin. program lead fifth grader brandon chang. prototype build lead, fifth grader irene chen. and research lead fifth grader isaac chen, and bridge build lead and safety officer, fourth grader devon nkang. welcome to the show. thanks for being here. cara leah. give me an idea, this is the final product. give us a little demonstration and tell us how it works.

crossing two ravines. >> yes, so what it does is when it starts, we have it turned, and then while it's rolling, we have the chop sticks in there to help it keep more traction, and then the grip pads on the top of it so it doesn't slide around. >> brandon, what kind of obstacles did you have to overcome to get to this? >> one of the biggest obstacles we had to overcome is when we figured out the first idea wouldn't work and then we have to quickly find a way that we can keep working. >> were those some of the early prototypes you have there? >> yeah. >> why don't you pick it up and let us see it. >> these two are the -- okay, this is a robot, and this one is also a robot. we were deciding which one to use to cross this bridge over

here. so then we pick the bridge up and do the process again. so then we can go across the ravine. >> irene, how about brainstorming like this? coming up with the ideas, how difficult was that? >> it was pretty difficult, but it became more and more easy once we researched more into it. first, we looked up on youtube and found a university where they had crossing robots. we found an identify and then modified it. >> what about for you? how difficult is it to try to look up with the problem and come up with a solution that you're going to actually build? >> we would look at our research first and see what we can use, what of our resource, and if we still have any questions, we would usually use our knowledge or research more. >> you have been building this one, right? how difficult was that?

>> to build it was pretty easy, but i really don't like taping because maybe sometimes the shape isn't perfect, so it's really hard to put it together. >> tell me about trying to coordinate all of this. first of all, is it fun, and is it difficult in terms of working as a team, et cetera? >> it's fun, but then it gets a little hard because you have to work together and figure out a way to -- >> coordinate everything. yeah. what was your role in doing this? >> my role is making most of -- >> okay. tell me something. for kind of coordinating all of this, at what point did you sort of figure out, okay, this is the way we're going to have to go? is it trial and error or are you able to get -- >> it was trial and error and

also using our good judgment. >> okay. go ahead and run this again. brandon, when you were looking at this, what were some of the bugs you were concerned about in terms of actually putting it in the ravine. >> one of the concerns we had about putting it into the ravine, we were scared that it would fall down into the ravine and break. or the wheel will fall down and break. >> irene, you were saying about the building, that's difficult because you can come up with an idea, but then you have to actually make a product that works. so is that trial and error, too, or did you have a good idea of what to do? >> sometimes we do, but then sometimes we just struggle on which one we thing is better. >> all right. what about you? for you, what's the most

important thing that kind of came out of all of this? >> the most important thing that came out of all of this process is when the mind storm wouldn't work, we just kind of knew, we don't have that much time, but we just need to try to push through it and even though it wasn't working, we need to stick in there, and then we came across this idea from watching a video about this tech challenge competition from like 30 years ago. >> wow. so sort of overcoming the disappointments and succeeding is the big thing, huh? >> yeah. >> congratulations. very impressive. thank you very much for being here. all right. and of course, we have another impressive group coming up. they're called trampoline. stay with us. ♪

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whatwhat made them believeace carthat a two-ton behemothhop? proudly caring for northern california, could compete in a track race? or that they could take on the elite in world motor racing, and win? we may never truly understand what drives mercedes-amg. but here's to another 50 years of it. mercedes-amg. half a century of driving performance. welcome back. next we have the team trampoline, a group from cupertino high school. all sophomores. kaley, niraleigh, alyssa, and marina. welcome to the show.

>> hi. >> how did you come up with trampoline? the name? >> we were at maria's house, and right outside of her kitchen, we see a trampoline. that's where we did all of our brainstorming. we decided on trampoline. >> it was a nice, fun name. >> you all can work the trampoline, right? >> oh, yeah. >> good. give me an idea here. this has to cross two ravines. essentially, how does this work? >> first, we start out on the first table, and then we lower the bridge like this. then we would back the robot up and move the arms back up so it doesn't get in the way as you move the robot across the bridge. then once it crosses the gap, we spin it around so that it can pick this bridge back up like this. and then we do the same from the second table to the third table, except there's an incline there.

>> i wish we had more room to demonstrate the mobility here. give us an idea in terms of coming up with the solution. what were some of the obstacles you guys had to overcome to do this? >> so, first we started with a much smaller model. and it worked pretty well from the first to the second table because it was just flat. however, when we tried it from the second to the third table, we ran into some difficulties with the inclination because we realized the robot didn't have enough power to move up the bridge when it was -- like there was an inclination. we decided to go with a much bigger model that has bigger tires with more traction. that seemed to work out well. >> how difficult is it to take an idea and make it into an actual, physical product. an actual physical machine like this? >> it was way harder than we thought. we ran into so many problems with the machine because when we first decided the idea, we saw a video and decided it worked really well. so we decided to do it. >> go ahead and demonstrate that

again. let's see. how dependable does it have to be? i mean, how much can you test it? and how much rigorous things can it go through so they can be ready for the competition? >> every time we meet once a week at least for a solid two hours. during then, we just keep running trials over and over again just to make sure there aren't any little things we're running into that we might face on the trial day. >> and we usually do. we usually run into problems. >> all the time. each meeting, we find new problems but we eventually get through it. sometimes when we are testing, crossing over the bridge, we'll keep a bean bag under it uncase it falls because we don't want it to break if it fell on the floor. >> that teeamwork, it seems to e sort of the rewarding thing about this, the trial and error. sometimes the failures kind of bridge you all together, right?

>> yeah. >> we had a lot. >> at what point do you sort of, like, decide how you're going to move forward? does each person have sort of role in this and say, okay, now it's time to do this? now it's time to do that. >> in the beginning, when we were first creating the idea of the robot and the bridge idea, we kind of sectioned off certain parts, certain aspects of the robot building to certain people. alyssa and kaley were on the bridge building. i was more on the programming side. and marina helped me a lot with that as well. >> how difficult was the programming? >> i have no experience with coding at all. >> none of us do. >> interesting. >> so basically, we had a booklet, so we just practiced activities with coding from that and pulled different pieces from different trials to make the final code. >> that's interesting because i think my assumption was that you're all really into science. >> no.

>> that's why you were doing this. so this tech challenge really is sort of tailors for young women like you, right? >> yeah. >> so how did it? let me hear from you in terms of what being a part of this did for you in terms of interest in science. >> i think before, it was i knew a little but not a lot. when you do this, you learn a lot of stuff about science. like a lot of new fields. i learned a lot about programming and how it works. i also learned about the mechanics and how to build a robot. and all four of us, none of us had any robotic experience. >> what did you get out of it in terms of science now? >> this has broadened my perspective on this for sure because i just learned how -- i don't know, building a robot used to seem so challenging. now that we have done it over the course of three months, it's a path we can all handle now. we're proud to be able to say

that. >> this tech challenge is a nice opportunity, isn't it? >> it definitely made me more interested in the science behind building robots and even coding. i have come to love that. it's fun for me now. >> how about you? >> i have always been interested in science so i thought this would be a good experience for me. in the beginning, not all of us were really close. >> we're a lot closer now. >> it's a fun thing to do every week. >> i look forward to the meetings. >> so do i. >> you're great advertisements for the tech challenge. thank you for being here, and best of luck in the competition. >> thank you so much. >> thank you. well, that's it for our show. you can learn more about the tech challenge and other bay area evenls by going to our websites, nbcbayarea.com, and be sure to stay connected with us on facebook and twitter. our thanks to all of our guests and best of luck to all of them who are taking part in the tech challenge on april 29th at the tech museum of innovation, and join us next week and every week here on "asian pacific america."

thanks for watching.

as far as north korea is concerned, we are in very good shape. >> the end of an era at the fox news channel. i think i got this, but thank you. >> good morning. welcome to sunday "today." i'm willie geist. as congress returns from a two-week recess, a big proposed agenda awaits them, health care, tax reform and the possibility of a government shutdown this week. chuck todd is it here to break it all down along with a french presidential election today. the world is watching very closely, voting is under way as we speak. plus, happy days fans mourning the sudden loss ofn