Star Wars Day, celebrated annually on May 4, is an unofficial international holiday dedicated to honoring the beloved Star Wars film franchise. Star Wars has inspired generations of scientists and engineers to pursue careers in robotics, aerospace, and physics, aiming to turn fictional technology into reality.
Cynthia Breazeal, a groundbreaking robot designer, was inspired by the movie Star Wars to build Kismet, her first sociable robot, at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is now a professor of media arts and sciences. Cynthia remembers that Kismet had an especially expressive face, and that led to the design of Leonardo, which is all about character and personality. While Cynthia’s work is with robots, her goals are much larger: “Technology is something you create to improve the human condition, to contribute to a better quality of life for everyone.”
Victoria Garcia, who is deaf, is an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Virtual Environments Lab in Huntsville, Alabama. Victoria talks about how she doesn’t consider being deaf a barrier in her work. In a captioned video from Design Squad Nation, Victoria demonstrates how she uses virtual reality tools to design an effective deep-space habitat for astronauts.
We may debate how to apply technological tools, but when we pause to reflect on what we all have in common, together we can bring balance to the force.