Next-Generation Scientists

[groovedaddy]

One day in the fall of their sophomore year, Matthew Fernandez and Akash Krishnan were at Akash’s house in Portland, Ore., trying to come up with an idea for their school’s science fair. At Oregon Episcopal School, all students in 7th to 11th grade are required to enter a project in the Aardvark Science Expo (the aardvark is the school’s mascot), and these two had teamed up for the last three years. Temporarily defeated, they popped in a DVD of “I, Robot.”

There’s a scene in the movie when Will Smith, who plays a robot-hating cop, visits Bridget Moynahan, the impossibly gorgeous scientist, and they begin to argue. She gets angry. Her personal robot immediately walks into the room and asks: “Is everything all right, Ma’am? I detected elevated stress patterns in your voice.” It’s a minor exchange — a computer recognizing emotion in a human voice — in a movie full of futuristic robots wreaking havoc, but it was an aha moment for a desperate research team. Their reaction, as Matt describes it, was: “ ‘Hey, that’s really cool. I wonder if there’s any science there.’ ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/magazine/mag-27science-t.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha210