Kind: captions
Language: en
every invention starts with an idea
we're trying to see how much play there
is for Tahira Reed Smith her idea comes
from a childhood
passion Double
[Music]
Dutch growing up in Bronx New York in
the 1980s Double Dutch was just what you
did as a little girl this double rope
version of jump rope was brought to New
York by Dutch settlers in the 17th
century
[Music]
more recently it became popular
particularly among black girls in cities
across the
us there are even fiercely competitive
National competitions and in some high
schools it's recognized as a Varsity
Sport to play Dutch requires two people
spinning ropes in opposite directions
and at least one person to
jump Tahira dreamed of a machine that
would allow her an only child at the
time to play double dutch whenever she
wanted in third grade she won a contest
for that concept and in the years that
followed she never gave up on that dream
major passion
project talking about an idea that I've
had for decades today she's a mechanical
engineer and Professor working in human
machine systems and she's building to
her Ultimate Dream to create an
affordable version of her invention that
people everywhere could
enjoy meanwhile another engineer Sky
Leilani is working on her own Double
Dutch
prototype Sky works at a robotic
software
company when I was in college I found Dr
Reed's Double Dutch machine at a point
where I was feeling like I couldn't get
where I wanted to go I was just
surrounded by a lot of people who didn't
look like me I saw she was from the
Bronx which is kind of similar to where
I'm from and that really inspired me
problems that matter that are informed
by culture that are informed by
background can stimulate the desire to
get into engineering the desire to go
about this process of creating something
that didn't previously exist the
problems which we decide are important
enough to solve are influenced by
someone's background and someone's
culture theah Hera has come to viam
robotics in New York City to collaborate
with
Sky bringing along her goddaughter saai
part of the latest generation interested
in engineering Double Dutch when I first
learned about Sky it really touched me
deeply because I didn't know that people
were watching me from afar when I was
looking at your designs I was just like
wow I was just very encouraged by it and
I was also impressed by her passion and
her excitement sky isn't a mechanical
engineer like Tahira is she's iterated
on tahira's design adding computer
controlled Motors and a software
interface to control the two ropes what
are the traits of an engineer I think
it's hard to generalize I feel like
there's there's many different kinds of
engineering there's many different kinds
of skills required in the different
types of engineering
she's modernized it writing code to
control it there's vision for even an
app and doing everything largely through
computer software and electronics very
little mechanical
engineering as Sky describes her
approach toahir sees that sky is running
into a familiar
problem synchronizing the
ropes the ropes need to extend in a high
arc turning in opposite directions and
staying 180° out of phase with each
other in other words when one rope is on
the ground the other should be directly
overhead as they rotate they need to
maintain a regular rhythm to truly
create double
dutch it looks easy when a person does
it but as to Hera and Sky know firsthand
it's anything but simple to engineer
that was wrong
the motor is always the most challenging
aspect and that is how it was with us
with double dutch the biomechanics that
people use to get it to it looks so
seamless but trying to recreate that in
a robot yes you realize we have to ask
ourselves how does the biology do it
with materials and information
processing units that no engineer would
dream of using how is it that we can
move both ropes so well at the same time
but a robot
can't so then the question is what do we
need to do to replicate that
look sky has chosen Motors that are
powerful enough to swing the ropes with
an added feature the motor for the
double dutch machine is from a
hoverboard they're DC motors with
encoders in them so they can track the
position
the encoder setup uses magnetic poles
mounted on the motor's
shaft a nearby sensor detects the
changes in magnetic field as the motor
spins tracking the motor's rotational
position and speed with
Precision that information can then be
sent to a computer to adjust the spin in
real time at least in theory A B A and C
running right now not b b isn't running
C
for now only three of Sky's four Motors
are spinning if these are two people's
arms it's just that it's like you step
to the right okay they decide to align
two working Motors so they can work with
one spinning rope for now let's just
turn it on let's just
[Music]
see yeah this is slow enough where I
could actually just walk into it
[Music]
it's an impressive Milestone the two
arms turning the Rope are perfectly in
sync okay stop
it
okay oh my gosh so good I haven't seen
anybody use it or anything this let's
see it's really important especially in
sort of engineering projects where
there's a consumer to sort of take
prototypes and actually test them with
your end users to see what their
feedback is that's what I love so much
about this project is Double Dutch is
collaborative and then robotics as an
entire field it combines three types of
engineering mechanical electrical and
software
engineering after making some tweaks to
the code they decide to try a true
Double Dutch jump you want to hear the
pat pat pat pat pat pat okay can you
take it over for me with two of the
working Motors deir guide Sky to be a
standin Turner snatch it for me all
right all
right there you go let just try with a
little bit of
hand with Sky's assistance the motors
are leading the
way and they're working like a charm oh
that's so satisfying oh my gosh oh je
thank you so much Dr re this is so
welcome amazing this was fun working
with Dr re today was incredible it was
actually a dream for me I felt like if I
continue with this project I'm going to
get there and then I'm going to see
myself as a different person who's
capable of more than I used to think I
was meanwhile after decades Tahira is
finally taking her own Double Dutch
design to the next
level and when we've done small tests
she's partnering with a product design
company to turn her prototype into
affordable consumer ready
version historically what has been
difficult has been how to design this
system in such a way that it's fully
functional and also cost effective which
is why she still thinks that the most
practical approach is to use only
mechanical means to synchronize the
motors Tahira and director of industrial
design Steve Escobar are deep in the
proof of concept
stage for now they're working with a
rudimentary plywood model to answer a
few basic design
questions once you have an idea how are
you going to actually execute the idea
how are you going to design the idea so
that people will actually want to use it
how are you going to make it accessible
um both from a cost perspective but also
uh from a a user interface perspective
this first iteration of the design uses
just one motor on each side plus some
good oldfashioned mechanical Hardware
like gears sprockets and
chains already they're facing a few
familiar challenges looks like it's in
syn actually including getting the ropes
in sink it's starting to go out of sink
okay with years of Double Dutch
experience Tahira knows exactly what the
ropes should sound like we need to be
able to hear a consistent Pat Pat Pat
Pat but we're hearing
it's very
rhythmic that's why when stuff's out of
beat it's like it's like the whole it's
this is just wrong if anything slips it
would be a tooth using gears is a common
sense way to keep the rotation of the
ropes in syn but something is wrong we
think the weight of the Rope is throwing
this
off when it's in motion it's actually
creating too much force for these arms
let's take some of these off and let's
see what
happens let's see let me just listen for
it so how's it going yes coming along
Michael spro president of spec design
stops in to see how things are
progressing where are we at guys how do
we as a team they talk about the day's
testing and how to improve the design
there's a lot to think about with some
of the play that's still in the arms you
visit with Sky was very inspirational to
us and that was switching from a single
motor with gears to two Motors at each
end when you shared that with us it
really kind of turned a light bulb on
it's extremely important to have
different people who can see things from
a different angle uh because each one of
us have our own blind spots tahira's
initial designs were rooted in her
experience with
mechanisms but collaborating with sky
has expanded the possibilities for
realizing the machine the best moments
of ideation are in my experience
collaborative and they involve ideas
bouncing off one another being folded
over the negative of that idea being
turned in into the positive of this
other idea working together across
different fields what Engineers call
interdisciplinary collaboration can be a
powerful multiplier though a lot more
troubleshooting remains tahir's project
is finally coming to life after Decades
of work semi surreal exciting it's a lot
it's heartwarming
it's just
glad there's a message behind this
product when it gets on the market
there's a story to inspire young girls
young inventors young minds dreamers