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>> And this is commentator
Dan Huot here

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in mission control while we
continue to look on and see some

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of the exciting robotics
activity taking place

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on board the station.

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We also have some really
exciting stuff that's going

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to be take place tomorrow.

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Now joining me on
the phone from MIT

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up in Massachusetts is
the principle investigator

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of the experiment known as
SPHERES, Dr. Alvar Saenz-Otero.

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Dr. Alvar, first
of all thank you

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so much for being here today.

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>> Dan, thank you very much.

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Good morning.

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>> Yes, good morning.

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So SPHERES-Zero-Robotics, first
off SPHERES is an acronym,

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tell me what it stands
for real quick?

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>> Sure. I don't think many
people will remember it it's the

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Synchronized Position
Hold, Engage, Reorient,

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Experimental Satellites.

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It's a long acronym and the
key word there is synchronized

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and position and
reorient basically means

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when multiple satellites
are synchronized to work

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to do something together.

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>> Okay. And these spheres have
been used on board the station

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in quite a number of runs,
you know, in the past couple

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of months and years
actually and I understand

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that you are heavily involved.

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Why don't you tell
us a little more

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about the history
of this project?

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>> Sure. I guess
there's two parts,

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let me just summarize
the space station part.

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We actually began operations
aboard space station back

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in 2006 that's when the
first of the spheres arrived

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and the other two followed
shortly thereafter.

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Where a distributed
experiment so one

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of the good things we could
start doing research even before

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all of the three satellites were
there we could already do tests

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and check outs and collect
some of the data we needed.

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And since then we've
completed 35 test sessions.

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So 35 sets of tests to reach
some sort of science objective

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and tomorrow is the
36th one, the 36th time

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that we complete a test plan

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and tomorrow's will be
the zero robotics final.

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But another really interesting
part about SPHERES is

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that it was the first
on what is now a series

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of I believe 9 classes at MIT

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where undergraduate students
design what will ultimately be

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space hardware.

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So instead of giving students
an individual thesis project

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at the end we gave the
whole group the jointly --

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the joint responsibility
for their thesis as a whole

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to design SPHERES and that
was a great experience

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and now fortunately
[inaudible] copying that format

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so I guess we did a good job.

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>> And I mean that
sounds really exciting.

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Any time we can get
students involved

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and especially giving
students the chance

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to have something actually
flying up on station

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that they're controlling
or involved in has got

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to be really exciting for them.

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Now tomorrow's activity
I understand is

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with high school students?

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>> That's right.

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That's right.

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A couple years ago, back
when we were doing training

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with astronaut Greg [inaudible]
who himself is an MIT alum

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and more importantly who is

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for his speech deeded
control systems.

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So he knew all about how
to control satellites

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and basically the
purpose of SPHERES.

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And he asked us a
very simple question,

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the way we design
SPHERES is very safe,

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there's nothing we can
program SPHERES to do

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that presents any safety
concerns to obviously the crew,

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most importantly to
space station or even

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to the satellites themselves.

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So no matter what people program

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on SPHERES the satellites are
safe and from every perspective.

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So since there's no restrictions
there he asked us well,

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while you're restricting
that to college students why

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to only college and
not younger students.

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And usually when you ask
an engineer a question

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and they cannot answer why
not they have to do it.

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So we designed this
competition we looked

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around and we learned a lot.

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As the name suggests
we got inspired

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by first robotics we
actually contacted them

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and got permission to use the
name zero robotics they said it

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was not a problem.

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So we made zero robotics
and what zero stands

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for is zero [inaudible]
although we all know

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that space station is actually
micro gravity not true zero

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gravity but close enough in
the engineering approximation

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for our objectives here.

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And the other zero
is also zero cost.

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We wanted to make
this a possibility

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for high school students
at no cost to them except

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for their effort and time to be
able to work with space station.

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So modeling -- using
SPHERES robotics

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as a model we created
a competition

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for high school students
and later

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on for middle school students
so in 2013 we're going

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to do middle school students
too where we design a game just

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like first robotics
does but instead

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of the students building robots
they're going to program robots.

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So I like to call ourselves
the software complement

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to first robotics.

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First robotics is mostly about
hardware we are pretty much all

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about software, but
with that way

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because it's all software
we designed a website

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that online everything
is done online.

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The students online
do the programming,

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they view simulations they
interpret the results they see

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how they're doing
in the competition.

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So basically zero robotics is a
software competition it's a way

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for students to learn
about programming and how

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to control satellites and the
finalists, the very best ones,

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and that's what we're going
to see tomorrow they get

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to test their code on our
hardware aboard space station.

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So they've already went
through three rounds

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of simulations they already did
the whole semester they began

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back in September and they
did all the simulations

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and tomorrow they're
really go their code is now

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in space station and it's just
waiting for the astronauts

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to turn satellites on tomorrow
and we're going to see who wins

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in the real world
instead of in simulation.

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>> That's right and it
will be really exciting.

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We're certainly looking forward
and we'll be following along.

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And just real quick I mean
this is such an amazing tool,

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can you tell me the kind of
response you generally get,

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like how excited
are these students

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that they're manipulating
something that's flying 250

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miles above them.

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>> Well let me tell you
tomorrow in the room we're going

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to have 21 -- actually, no,
I believe I think it's 21

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or 23 teams I have to double
check the final attendance list,

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but it's at least 21 teams
of high school students

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who we gave no money to and
they found their own funding

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to come to MIT to see it.

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So it wasn't just -- it's not
just excitement of working

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in the station I love to
see that action, right,

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they actually took the action
of going and fundraising

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on their own to find
money to come to MIT

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to watch these finals.

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To me that's an amazing example
of how interested they are

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because they're in high school
they don't really do fundraising

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very much.

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So it's extremely exciting.

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In this year our estimate
because we don't force people

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to give us full rosters of their
teams that's not our objective,

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our objective is to
make sure they have

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at least five students
on each team.

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But we estimate we have

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about 1700 students
participating this year

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and it's only our second year of
doing this at a national level.

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>> Wow, so --

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>> So in two years we're
reaching over 1500 students

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for sure and I'm hoping close
to 2000 but I don't want

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to quite promise that.

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>> Well it certainly
sounds like you guys are off

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to a great start and we
hope it can only grow

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because it really is,
it's an amazing tool

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to get students involved

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and stem science technology
engineering and math

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and I mean we're certainly going
to be looking forward to it

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and we'll be making sure that we
watch the competition tomorrow

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and see who wins.

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So, Dr. Alvar, thank you so much
for coming on with me real quick

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and giving us a look
inside zero robotics,

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good luck to all the
teams for mission control

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and we'll be watching.

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>> Thank you very much, Dan,
and yes we'll be on NASA TV

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and we also have a webcast
direct off our website

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which is zerorobotics.mit.edu
for anybody who wants

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to watch it either on
NASA TV or our website.

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Tomorrow we start at 8:30
in the morning and go

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until 1:00 there's a lot
of competition to run.

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>> Okay. We'll be
following along.