Beatty Robotics at the White House
In 2014, President Obama invited us to the White House! It was amazing to walk into the White House and set up our robots in the Grand Foyer. The President and many others came through to talk with us and see our robots, including cabinet members, senators, CEOs of tech companies, deans of universities, and techno-dignitaries from across America. We met and talked with the Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF), top officials from NASA and the Navy (who tried to recruit me!), Dean Kamen (inventor of Segway, FIRST Robotics, etc.), Dale Dougherty (Founder of MAKE Magazine & Maker Faire), and many others. The famous rapper/activist will.i.am drove our Mars Rover around the White House! But the best part was when everyone poured into the East Room and the President gave a big speech to the nation. He talked about us as shining examples of American entrepreneurialism. When he asked us to standup, the whole room burst into applause. It was awesome. —Genevieve & Camille
Here we are in front of our robot exhibit in the Grand Foyer of the White House…
Our robot exhibit in the Grand Foyer of the White House…
Here we are with Dale Dougherty, CEO of Maker Media, founder of the Maker Faire, and publisher of MAKE Magazine.
Beatty Robotics in front of the famous portrait of JFK in the White House.
Hundreds of dignitaries and VIPs attended the event. Here, Genevieve is explaining the technical details of the robots to one of the visitors.
The famous rapper/activist will.i.am is committed to science education in the inner cities, so he was one of the people who dropped by our exhibit. We taught will.i.am. how to drive the Mars Rover and our Aluminalis robot around the Grand Foyer of the White House! will.i.am showed intense interest and knowledge in the technology of robots and we talked in detail about his involvement in FIRST robotics and other society-oriented initiatives.
Here is Camille making a little electronic tweak to one of the robots while Genevieve talks with one of the visitors…
It was a great honor to be invited to the White House and to be part of this historic event. We would like to thank the New York Hall of Science for their encouragement and support, and for lending us their “Genevieve” Mars Rover for a few days. We would also like to thank the staff at the White House, all of whom were warm, welcoming, and excellent to work with. We would also like to thank our mom for remembering to take pictures with her iPhone during the exciting chaos of the event. —Genevieve & Camille
