Follow our afternoon at TEDx…

Dr. Paul Aravich

12:35 pm | Even lunch breaks here are interesting. Darwin wows the crowd and takes a bow. (Click to watch video) Neuroscientist Dr. Paul Aravich, form Virginia Beach, talks to another small crowd about the limitless possibilities of the brain, which he calls “the universe between our ears.”

11:49 am | I don’t know how better to say this…Dennis Hong from RoMeLa (Robotics and Mechanics Laboratory) is, at this very moment, blowing my mind. He’s presenting robots that look like sci-fi movies and can do insane things, like climb walls (CLIMBER), leap hundreds of feet (STRIDER), and plays a game of soccer autonomously as true artificial intelligence (DARWIN). The latter is aiming to compete in Robocup, a real soccer match for artificially intelligent robots.

Hong’s five secrets to his and RoMeLa’s success:

1 Get inspired! He keeps a notebook by his bed where he jots down ideas in the night, and transfers them into his home computer where he keeps a database of ideas.

2 There is No Criticism, only Refinement. At RoMeLa, Koska says, no ideas are criticized.

3 Your Batman Utility-belt. “There’s only so much one can do with ideas and creativity,” he says. “For us engineers and scientists, our utility belt is education courses.”

4 Work Smart, then Work Hard.

5 Don’t Forget to Have Fun! “That’s really the secret to our success,” he says.

A painting by Pat Rawlings.

11:35 am | “Creativity exists well within structure,” says Pat Rawlings, space illustrator and designer. He spoke about his process of painting scenes from space; researching the backstory, telling a narrative within the image (for one painting, he invented a movie in his head about the astronauts he was illustrating) and at times revealing a little bit of foresight, which he admitted is often just “dumb luck.”

11:30 am | This, my friends, is Professor Brenda Barrow, “the Math Lady from Outer Space.” She is the past president of the Virginia Council of Teachers of Mathematics and an adjunct professor at ODU.

Brenda Barrow, the Math Lady from Outer Space

“I’m so excited to be here on the planet Earth,” she says. She’s just gotten the crowd to sing, “We live math, it’s so much fun! We love math, it’s nu-u-umber one!” It’s been an interesting morning here at TEDxNASA, folks. Let’s just say, at a conference full of advanced scientists and technologists, Brenda Barrow was the one that went over my head.

11:12 am | “My grandmother told me,” says speaker Nancy Vogl, “that one day, maybe not in my lifetime and maybe not in your lifetime, but one day, people will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the essence of their being.” Vogl’s grandmother had said this in response to a Life magazine article in 1966 reporting about an interracial couple by the name of Loving–appropriately enough–who had secretly married right here in Virginia, where it was illegal, and in consequence were banished(!!!) from the state for 25 years.

A little bit of research (thanks Google!) just turned up the following regarding the case of Loving versus Virginia:

Mildred and Richard Loving, 1966.

“Richard and Mildred Loving were married in 1958 in Washington D.C. because their home state of Virginia still upheld the antimiscegenation law which stated that interracial marriages were illegal. They were married, then lived together in Caroline County, Virginia. In 1959 they were prosecuted and convicted of violating the states’s antimiscegenation law. They were each sentenced one year in jail, but promised the sentence would be suspended if they agreed to leave the state and not return for 25 years. Forced to move, they returned to Washington D.C. where, in 1963, they initiated a suit challenging the constitutionality of the antimiscegenation law. In March of 1966, the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the law, but in June of 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled the law unconstitutional. Thus, in 1967 the 16 states which still had antimiscegenation laws on their books were forced to erase them.”

“What if the entire human race had nothing to do with the color of one’s face,” concludes Vogl. “What if it only had to do with love? Wouldn’t the world be a more wonderful place?’

Jesse taking a Virtour.

10:58 am | We’ve arrived at the Ferguson Center for TEDxNASA and already we’ve downed two cups of coffee and Jesse has partaken in a virtual tour, wherein he put on a very futuristic-looking visor and walked around in a big ball that simulated a park and an open arcade with frescoed walls. “This is the future,” said the coordinator from NASA, who told onlookers about how the ‘Virtour’ has helped train soldiers for combat. An elderly lady nearby mentioned that she’d seen a blind woman try out something like a Virtour and was able to see and ‘experience’ the world again, if but for a few moments.