U, Robot

by Rebecca Schoenkopf

Science is hard! That is why Americans don’t like it. Except for crime scene science, which is totally the big thing right now because of the magic that happens on every episode of Law & Order and the CSIs, soon surely to include Pierre, South Dakota, and just once I would like to see the lab techs tell the detectives that because of budget cuts it will be eight-to-14 weeks before they can match the DNA to the (suspected; this is America; props to Celeste Fremon) perp, and until then they will just have to cool their heels and hope he stops his serial-murderin’ spree. Sad cops. Have a donut.

But back to science, and America, and how we don’t like it. Scientists were the bugaboos of the early horror movies for a reason: because they are all maaaad! (And arrogant. Think of the most arrogant doctor who’s ever malpracticed you, and then give him Asperger’s, and madness.) The human race could have gone on quite nicely without Hiroshima and liposuction, thank you, but scientists just had to invent them, because of madness or The Search for Pure Knowledge or whatever. Americans really don’t like science (unless it’s blood and sperm under a black light), and it’s not just those who believe Eve never should have tried to know stuff, that dinosaur bones were put in the earth by The Debbil to tempt us with thoughts of Larnin’, and that inoculating teen girls before they get HPV means Jesus can’t give them the cervical cancer they and their promiscuous ways have earned. Nope, it’s not just they: even I, Red Emma, call up my dear girlfriend Suparna the Rocket Scientist and scream things like, “THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER IS GOING TO RIP A HOLE IN THE UNIVERSE! AIYEEEEEE!” while even over the phone I can hear the sad look on her face, because she has just realized she is friends with an idiot. Well, we’ll see who’s right when mid-November rolls around—or doesn’t!—this year, after the LHC finally goes operational or not oh God I hope it doesn’t.

Suparna the Rocket Scientist, whom I’ve had the honor of knowing since she was an NYU freshman, FOB from Pennsylvania, is not mad nor arrogant nor even has Asperger’s. Instead, she is tall and lovely and sweet and humble and never frowns at people even when they are morons. She is so tall and lovely and sweet and humble and un-frowny that once, when we went to Hollywood party, in Hollywood, everyone thought we must be dumb because we were so young and hot, and she laughed (quietly, in private) with pure delight, “The great thing about that is that we’re really, really smart!” And then, instead of looking down from her great heights and explaining that she is a rocket scientist, and works at JPL, FOR NASA, on the MISSION TO MARS, she started talking about recipes. In fact, she is so humble that every time I introduce her as a rocket scientist, she says she is not, since she is only an ENGINEER WHO HAS WORKED ON THREE MISSIONS TO MARS.

I love my Suparna. I’m disgustingly proud of her.

A couple of years ago, Suparna got involved with a Girl Scout robotics troop. The “Rock n Roll Robots” team’s four other mentors are also female JPL engineers (or as I prefer it, rocket scientists). They help the team make robots for “coopertition” as the vague umbrella organization FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) has trademarked it (along with “gracious professionalism,” a goal I admire and a trademarking I don’t). It’s a compe(cooper)tition that doesn’t allow you to design your robot to block the other team’s goal, and these are high school kids, building robots, and honestly I can’t approve. For one thing, they’re girls, and should focus on French literature, or maybe public relations, instead of engineering or rocket scientistry. Also, their robots are not allowed to sport can openers with which to gouge out the tin of their coopetitors. Also three, a Roomba is all well and good, because I don’t like to vacuum, but my son once had one of those cute robot puppies and it broke almost immediately, so people should just stop it with the robot fixations already. I’m talking to you, island nation of Japan! Plus four, everyone knows that sentience lurks, Skylab and Small Soldiers etc., and Suparna and her ilk are going to have some splaining to (Daisy-Daisy-give-me-your-answer) do.

In conclusion, CSI, brain drain, public relations, girls, Oppenheimer, Large Hadron Collider, terrifying! But if you yourself are actively seeking a Future of Doom and have got a hankering to see some coopertitive roboting in action, you can mosey out to the hamlet of San Marino for the Regional coopertition (probably December 12), ask questions or get involved at losangelesfirst.info, or check out Rock n Roll Robots at rocknrollrobots25.com.

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