Speaker 1: The movies that we produce at Disney, give the audience a promise about what these heroic characters can do. Some of those we can deliver with human acrobats, but some of those are too dangerous or just not physically possible for human to do. So. My job here is to look at, are there new technologies that are emerging that could have an impact [00:00:30] on the experience that guests have in our parks? Is there something that we've always wanted to, or some kind of a dramatic experience that we've wanted to deliver that we haven't previously been able to do? Because the te wasn't there, My name's Morgan Pope, and I'm a research scientist at Walt Disney. Imaginary.
Speaker 1: [00:01:00] What I'm trying to do is deliver something new and exciting, and that means that in the early phases, I might be physically making something, mocking something up, you know, maybe, maybe riding a little bit of firmware, maybe, uh, putting together a very basic circuit, maybe building a small mechanical thing to just kind of test out and see if there's any something there, if there's anything at all. And then as [00:01:30] an idea, maybe takes form and bad ideas fall away. Then it shifts into working with a slightly larger team to build something with a little more resolution. Sometimes it shifts into managing a bunch of really smart people, as they do a deep dive into creating something. And then as we move, as the project moves towards actually delivering something, I get to be in that role of making sure the system is coming together and making sure that we understand how we can do this reliably and safely. [00:02:00] The projects at Disney usually take years, we're starting with something that's new and undeveloped, and it takes a while to figure out what it even is. And then actually delivering something to the level of quality that is expected is something that takes a long time. So the amazing Spiderman show, that's been almost a full five years to really bring that into
Speaker 1: [00:02:30] One of my absolute favorite things about working at Disney is that I get to work with a really amazing team. I have a technical background, but we're producing creative dramatic products. So my creative partner has been Tony dokey. He has such a good grasp of how to take a technical innovation and how to push it into something that will make an emotional experience. [00:03:00] We've been able to work with special effects specialists, be able to work with programmers and with mechanical engineers, with other roboticists and with people who specialize in putting on shows. These are our prototypes. Going back when I showed up, Tony was [00:03:30] already working on these two little automatons, uh, there's
Speaker 2: Actually no electronics in them. There's no motors, there's no computer. Uh, there's no sensors. There's a proof of concept for whether or not it was possible to create a robot that can do stunts.
Speaker 1: At the same time I was working on this, which is not as visually interesting as these guys, but it had some weights inside that could move around and those would let it change how fast it was spinning. So
Speaker 2: We went from the brick [00:04:00] yep. To this very, very early, very crude prototype. It's just a four by four sod and half with a door hinge in the middle of it
Speaker 1: And basically gave it the, kind of the control ideas that we had developed for here. Except now we're shifting inertia via a bend, which is how a human would do it.
Speaker 2: The, the design philosophy for this was let's build something that, uh, we can easily repair in a matter of minutes, not hours or days,
Speaker 1: It was able to do [00:04:30] pretty significant changes in its inertia. You know, going from this extended pose to this fully compressed pose. It's a big change. Definitely. When this thing landed, you're kind of like, oh, I hope it's okay. This is our first kind of human shaped
Speaker 2: Prototype at 150 pounds. This is a pretty substantial piece of machinery. Yeah. And it's got a lot of energy coming down.
Speaker 1: It's a fairly clunky robot and it's not, it's not particularly graceful or elegant when it's on the ground. But as soon as you throw it into the air, [00:05:00] suddenly they're is aliveness to it. These were easy. Half scale was super easy to put together. They were cheap to make. And, and so we're able to play with different hip configurations, pick out what motions ended up being important and start to think, you know, is this giving us the show we want, this one was an exploration of the different joint geometry. And this one was also a super robust robot that was easy to fix. So we were able to be confidently, throw him [00:05:30] on a very new system, throw him very high that gave us confidence to go ahead and start with this electric figure. So this is our second to last robot that we built, the, the last prototype robot, similar design ideas of having breakaway linkages, where we need them a lot cleaner, a lot tighter, everything fits inside the human shell.
Speaker 2: It's gotta look good
Speaker 1: In the spandex, right? This is the one where [00:06:00] we felt like, yes, this is actually our first truly functional trons robot. This is the one that looks good enough that you can believe it's a, it's your hero actually flying through the air. It was never a linear path to this job. I grew up in [00:06:30] a small town in rural Utah, and I was a huge nerd. I loved reading and, uh, books basically just took the lid off of my imagination and, and let me experience and dream.
Speaker 1: It was at Harvard that I sort of realized that I could participate in making stuff that was new. And then I remember meeting a grad student who was working on robotics and I was like, oh my gosh, that us, the coolest thing ever. And uh, [00:07:00] I mean, wouldn't it be awesome if I could, if I could do that. And I, at the time I was like, yeah, that's it just felt like a completely different life. And then, you know, a few months later I was thinking, I was like, wait a second. You know, my life is yet to be written. I could totally do that. Like there's no, there's no laws against it.
Speaker 3: Very magical world of small robots. And,
Speaker 1: Um, so I ended up getting my PhD in mechanical engineering. Um, and I worked in a lab called the biomeds and Dexter robotics lab, the B DML, um, at Stanford, that lab focuses on taking inspiration [00:07:30] from the natural world
Speaker 4: Robot capable of flying purching, recovering from failure and taking off
Speaker 1: Because the natural world is amazing. And we are so far behind in robotics compared to what, you know, even a squirrel can do, but there's so much there to learn. And so that, that was kind of the focus of that lab is kind of, is there anything that we can get close to achieving
Speaker 1: Working at while Disney imagin is something that a lot of people dream about [00:08:00] and I feel very lucky to have been able to work here. Um, obviously I worked hard in my PhD, but it really was a great coincidence that I had worked with a professor who knew one of the research scientists at Disney. And so he was able to give me a strong recommendation and that kind of opened the door to allow me to come in. Once I was able to come to interview, it was pretty clear. It was a good fit on both sides. This is a place where I could do that kind of engineering work that I loved, but it also [00:08:30] spoke to that kid in rural Utah who loved sci-fi fantasy.
Speaker 3: I'm.
