Upworthy’s book GOOD PEOPLE is coming this year — pre-order now!

Shop
 Explore 

robots

Heroes

What tricks does Pixar use to make us cry? This AI might know.

It’s not unusual for something made or written on a computer to be able to make you sad.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a somber, melancholy game about dealing with loss and defeat, for instance, and computer-generated Pixar characters — like Bing Bong in "Inside Out" and Hector in "Coco," for example — have made audiences cry for years.

[rebelmouse-image 19476752 dam="1" original_size="500x275" caption="Truly, 'tis like Hamlet. GIF from Disney/Pixar's "Inside Out."" expand=1]Truly, 'tis like Hamlet. GIF from Disney/Pixar's "Inside Out."

But even though they were made on a computer, behind each of those emotional moments were human beings — be they musicians, directors, actors, or designers. In 2016, a computer wrote the "Sunspring" short film, but, well, it's a really interesting experiment but not the most inspiring story ever told.

In the future, though, a computer might be able to break your heart all on its own. Or at least offer its thoughts on how to do it best.

And the benefit for us? Better movies.

Researchers from MIT’s Lab for Social Machines and McKinsey’s Consumer Tech and Media Team recently taught artificial intelligence to identify emotional moments in popular movies and dissect exactly which lines of dialogue, musical cues, or visuals tugged at the viewers' heartstrings.

This, for example, is how the computer perceived the opening sequence of Pixar’s "Up." The high points represent happier moments while the troughs represent sadder ones.

The researchers taught the AI how to do this by asking volunteers to review thousands of movie sequences then write down their emotions and the triggering moments. The researchers translated this into numbers the computer could understand.

According to researchers, the long-term goal is to create intelligence that can help human filmmakers by suggesting specific shots, lines of dialogue, or musical cues as they’re making the film. Imagine something akin to Microsoft's Clippy saying, "It looks like you’re writing a touching death scene between the protagonist and their mother. Maybe don't go with a chiptune cover of 'All About That Bass' as the background music?"

Though some have reacted to the news with warnings about some pretty science-fiction-esque implications, I, for one, welcome anything that brings robots closer to feeling human emotions. After all, if we have to suffer, so should they.

And if you personally feel like having a trip down the ol' feels-trip lane, we've oh-so-helpfully provided the "Up" official trailer below. Enjoy.

11 photos that answer the burning question: What if nature, but also robots?

If popular culture is to be believed, there are a few great divides that are immutable. Yankees versus the Red Sox. Android versus iPhone. Technology versus nature. Never the two shall meet.

But that last one? Maybe we should stop taking it for granted. A new Dutch exhibition called Robotanica is exploring how technology and robotics in particular might play a collaborative role with the natural world. The curators have picked 11 different projects from designers, scientists, and artists that imagine how technology could blend with, and ultimately benefit, nature.

Some are real research projects or concepts, while others are more like conversation pieces. But all of them are fascinating ideas. Check them out below.

1. One big idea seen in multiple exhibits — could robots mimic, or even replace, natural animals?

[rebelmouse-image 19532968 dam="1" original_size="750x561" caption="It's kind of cute. All photos from Transnatural/Robotanica." expand=1]It's kind of cute. All photos from Transnatural/Robotanica.

The Delfly Explorer, for instance, is a small, robotic dragonfly that can flap its wings, control its height, and even see and avoid obstacles. Can you picture a bunch of these guys skimming across the surface of a pond?

2. Swarms of the Vessel robots could paddle across the surface of water.

These are considerably less cute. The lights are a nice touch though.

3. The Woodpecker Project could even mimic the sounds of a disappearing species.

Just wait until someone hacks in and starts playing AC/DC.

The Woodpecker Project uses speakers to recreate the sound of an endangered bird species. It's not just for show — the calls help keep insects away that'd otherwise hurt the tree.

It's not a perfect solution. “We maybe better focus on protecting the biological woodpeckers,” exhibit curator Arjen Bangma told Fast Company. But the mechanical version might be able to help out while the natural population recovers.

Other projects outside the exhibition, like the robo-bee, have also looked at using robots to help replace natural animals.

4. How about living cyborg insects that could be controlled via computer? Could they be used to help find people after a disaster?

This is the least cute of all. It's, like, negative cute.

While some of these projects are more conceptual, robo-bugs are very much a real thing. You can even buy kits yourself.

5. On the other hand, maybe we could use technology to shape the world to our liking. How about a coat that breathes along with us and that could alert us to air pollution?

If someone walked up to me wearing this coat, I'd just assume they're a superhero.

6. The Cloud Machine imagines a sky full of weather-making machines to help control the climate.

[rebelmouse-image 19532973 dam="1" original_size="444x500" caption="I bet it makes a "spfffff" noise. Also, what is this hanging from?" expand=1]I bet it makes a "spfffff" noise. Also, what is this hanging from?

Geoengineering and climate engineering are real concepts, though many people are scared of unexpected consequences basically turning the Earth into a Hollywood disaster movie.

7. The Weather War examines whether we could use machines to help redirect tornadoes.

Yeah, let's put a mysterious black orb in this field. That's not totally ominous.

The exhibit is based on the 2012 documentary of the same name.

8. What would robotics do to the animals we keep? Would the lives of farm chickens improve if we placed them in a virtual reality simulation of nature?

I really don't see how any caption could improve this.

9. What if we released herds of wild rolling tumbleweed-bots to collect data about desertification?

[rebelmouse-image 19532976 dam="1" original_size="750x518" caption=""Drifting along in the tumbling tumbleweeeeed..."" expand=1]"Drifting along in the tumbling tumbleweeeeed..."

Just imagine seeing 20 of these coming over the horizon.

10. Or released rolling, autonomous sunlight-seeking gardens onto our streets?

[rebelmouse-image 19532977 dam="1" original_size="750x421" caption=""Excuse me, hooman, but do you have any fertilizer?"" expand=1]"Excuse me, hooman, but do you have any fertilizer?"

11. And, in this brave new world, will we need simulations to remember old-fashioned things like the night sky?

Looks like a kind of makeshift planetarium.

Whether or not these inventions and ideas come to pass, they raise a good point.

Technology doesn't have to come at the expense of the natural world. Scientists can use devices like GPS systems to help monitor animal populations; robo-animals can help documentarians get amazing shots of wildlife; and efficient appliances and cleaner energy can help us reduce our environmental footprints.

While you might have a hard time selling chicken farmers on those teeny-tiny virtual reality helmets, perhaps technology and nature don't need to be so divorced after all.

Family

Scientists launched a robot-judged beauty contest. What could go wrong? A lot.

"Computer computer, on my screen — what's the fairest face you've ever seen?"

Presumably, that's what the folks at Youth Laboratories were thinking when they launched Beauty.AI, the world's first international beauty contest judged entirely by an advanced artificial intelligence system.

More than 600,000 people from across the world entered the contest, which was open to anyone willing to submit a selfie taken in neutral lighting without any makeup.

According to the scientists, their system would use algorithms based on facial symmetry, wrinkles, and perceived age to define "objective beauty" — whatever that means.

This murderous robot understands my feelings. GIF via CNBC/YouTube.

It's a pretty cool idea, right?

Removing all the personal taste and prejudice from physical judgment and allowing an algorithm to become the sole arbiter and beholder of beauty would be awesome.

What could possibly go wrong?

"Did I do that?" — These researchers, probably. GIF from "Family Matters."

Of the 44 "winners" the computer selected, seven of them were Asian, and one was black. The rest were white.

This is obviously proof that white people are the most objectively attractive race, right? Hahaha. NO.

Instead, it proves (once again) that human beings have unconscious biases, and that it's possible to pass those same biases on to machines.

Basically, if your algorithm is based mostly on white faces and 75% of the people who enter your contest are white Europeans, the white faces are going to win based on probability, even if the computer is told to ignore skin tone.

Plus, most cameras are literally optimized for light skin, so that probably didn't help the problem, either. In fact, the AI actually discarded some entries that it deemed to be "too dim."

So, because of shoddy recruitment, a non-diverse team, internal biases, and a whole slew of other reasons, these results were ... more than a little skewed.

Thankfully, Youth Laboratories acknowledged this oversight in a press release. They're delaying the next stage in their robotic beauty pageant until they iron out the kinks in the system.

Ironically, Alex Zhavoronkov, their chief science officer, told The Guardian, "The algorithm ... chose people who I may not have selected myself."

Basically, their accidentally racist and not-actually-objective robot also had lousy taste.Whoops.

Ooooh baby, racist robots! Yeah! GIF from Ruptly TV/YouTube.

This begs an important question: As cool as it would be to create an "objective" robot or algorithm, is it really even possible?

The short answer is: probably not. But that's because people aren't actually working on it yet — at least, not in the way they claim to be.

As cool and revelatory as these cold computer calculations could potentially be, getting people to acknowledge and compensate for their unconscious biases when they build the machines could be the biggest hurdle. Because what you put in determines what you get out.

"While many AI safety activists are concerned about machines wiping us out, there are very few initiatives focused on ensuring diversity, balance, and equal opportunity for humans in the eyes of AI," said Youth Laboratories Chief Technology Officer Konstantin Kiselev.

Of course you like that one. GIF from "Ex Machina."

This is the same issue we've seen with predictive policing, too.

If you tell a computer that blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be criminals, for example, it's going to provide you with an excuse for profiling that appears on the surface to be objective.

But in actuality, it just perpetuates the same racist system that already exists — except now, the police can blame the computer instead of not taking responsibility for themselves.

"There is no justice. There is ... just us." GIF from "Justice League."

Of course, even if the Beauty.AI programmers did find a way to compensate for their unconscious biases, they'd still have to deal with the fact that, well, there's just no clear definition for "beauty."

People have been trying to unlock that "ultimate secret key" to attractiveness since the beginning of time. And all kinds of theories abound: Is attractiveness all about the baby-makin', or is it some other evolutionary advantage? Is it like Youth Laboratories suggests, that "healthy people look more attractive despite their age and nationality"?

Also, how much of beauty is strictly physical, as opposed to physiological? Is it all just some icky and inescapable Freudian slip? How much is our taste influenced by what we're told is attractive, as opposed to our own unbiased feelings?

Simply put: Attractiveness serves as many different purposes as there are factors that define it. Even if this algorithm somehow managed to unlock every possible component of beauty, the project was flawed from the start. Humans can't even unanimously pick a single attractive quality that matters most to all of us.

GIF from "Gilligan's Island."

The takeaway here? Even our technology starts with our humanity.

Rather than creating algorithms to justify our prejudices or preferences, we should focus our energies on making institutional changes that bring in more diverse voices to help make decisions. Embracing more perspectives gives us a wider range of beauty — and that's better for everyone.

If your research team or board room or city council actually looks like the world it's supposed to represent, chances are they're going to produce results that look the same way, too.

Heroes

These weird nanorobots could make chemotherapy treatment easier.

"Chemotherapy is brutal. The goal is pretty much to kill everything in your body without killing you."

That's what Rashida Jones said in Oprah Magazine back in 2009 while discussing her mother's cancer.

Jones at the 2010 Stand Up to Cancer event. Jones has been an outspoken advocate for supporting cancer treatment. Photo by Handout/Getty Images.

And it's true. While chemotherapy has been one of our greatest weapons in fighting cancer, it can be merciless to the person who has to go through it. Side effects include hair loss, pain, fatigue, trouble concentrating, and stomach issues. It can even sometimes cause long-term damage to your heart, lungs, or other organs.

That's why researchers have devoted a ton of time to trying to create better, more precise, less-like-dropping-a-bomb-into-your-veins treatments.

And researchers in Canada, led by professor Sylvain Martell of the Polytechnique Montréal Nanorobotics Laboratory, might have just created something amazing – a kind of remote-controlled anti-cancer nanorobot. They published their findings in a paper titled "Magneto-gerotactic Bacteria Deliver Drug-containing Nanoliposomes to Tumour Hypoxic Regions."

Yeah, it's a mouthful, but the science behind it is pretty cool and not actually that hard to understand. Here's how it works:

Imagine your body's blood vessels like a gigantic hamster maze.

Hamsters are big fans of similes. Photo from iStock.

I know, kind of a weird metaphor, but stick with me here. Now, there are over 60,000 miles of blood vessels in our body all stitched together, so this is a pretty big maze. And somewhere in there, connected to the system, is our target – the tumor. But how do we get to it?

Standard chemotherapy is kind of like taking a big old bottle of chemicals and trying to just flood everything.

If the tube maze is full up to the top with chemicals, that tumor's definitely going to get treated, but so will, you know, everything else connected to that maze.

So as most chemo is trying to stop cancer's runaway growth, there tends to be a good amount of noncancer collateral damage to other growing cells (that's why chemo patients tend to lose their hair).

That's the (very simplified) standard chemo scenario.

This new technique, however, is like dropping the hamster into that maze, then leading it directly to the tumor with a carrot.

Only in this case, the hamster is actually tiny ocean-going bacteria called magnetococcus. Magnetococcus is special because it has a kind of built-in compass that it uses to orient itself in the big, wide ocean. If it ever gets lost, it can use that compass to wiggle its way back home.

What the researchers figured out they can do is take some of those bacteria, load them up with special, cancer-fighting chemicals, then inject them into the patient. Then, by using computer-controlled magnets outside the patient's body, they can tweak all those mini-compasses and lead the cancer-fighting bacteria straight to the tumor, like a hamster following its nose.

The scientists did not say if the bacteria got similarly adorable treats afterwards. Photo from iStock.

It's worth noting that a few other places have experimented with other kinds of nano-delivery schemes, but they weren't as precise partly because they didn't use things that could move on their own like these bacteria can.

There's some other cool things about this particular technique as well, like how the bacteria can naturally seek out hard-to-reach areas of the tumor that don't get a lot of oxygen and how they might be able to penetrate the brain's security-system-esque blood-brain barrier.

It's still in testing, but if this works, it could make chemotherapy far less brutal.

The nanorobotics lab. Photo by Polytechnique Montréal.

So far they've tested it in mice, and the researchers have obtained funding to try to put together a fully-equipped, human-sized setup. The government of Quebec even kicked in $1.85 million.

Chemotherapy is a life-saving invention, and it'd be hard for me to overstate how much it's changed cancer treatment. But anyone who's taken it or anyone who's watched a loved one go through it can tell you it's rough. Thanks to researchers like these, treating cancer one day might be a heck of a lot easier.

Family

Discover the strange, beautiful poetry of a real-life robot raised on romance novels.

It was only a matter of time before artificial intelligence entered its adolescent emo phase. Thanks to Google, that time is now.

Move over, Romeo; there's a new romantic master in town.

But unlike that creepily obsessive Shakespearean suitor, this saccharine paramour scrawls its sweet nothings across computer screens instead of scrolls of parchment. Here's a sampling of its lovely lyrical language:

Image (altered) via rabiem22/Flickr.

It sounds like the sparse, pseudo-profound writing of a potentially-talented-if-undeniably-angsty teenager. Except for the part where it was actually written by a robot.

Or, well, artificial intelligence if we're being technical since it doesn't have a body. Yet.

But the surprising wordsmith behind this — and many other accidental found poems — is Google Brain, an artificial intelligence system that's spent the last few years undergoing some pretty crazy deep machine learning programs. It's the same AI that controls video recommendations on YouTube as well as the speech recognition software on the Android phone.

It was only a matter of time before it entered its adolescent emo phase, just like those of us with non-artificial intelligence.

And how exactly did this robo-mantic learn such a way with words? The same way anyone else does: by reading a lot.

According to Quartz, Google researchers shared a scientific paper titled "Generating Sentences from a Continuous Space " at the International Conference on Learning Representations in May. The paper detailed the team's efforts to train their AI to parse the linguistic connections between sentences using something called recurrent neural network language models, or RNNLMs, which mimic human brain behaviors.

Researchers provided the AI with the text of approximately 12,000 ebooks, including 2,865 romance novels and about 1,500 fantasy novels.

And the romance novel influence is pre-tty clear.

The somewhat-sentient software attempted to identify patterns and relationships between the words and phrases of some 80 million sentences. They then challenged the machine by providing it with two separate sentences and instructing it to create a series of new sentences that would get from point A to point B.

For example, they told the AI to start with the sentence "Amazing, isn't it?" and gradually connect it to the sentence "I couldn't do it." And here's what they got:

While not intentionally created as poems, per se, a lot of the resulting text blocks read like cool, abstract poetry.

It's nothing revolutionary — although I do appreciate the e.e. cummings touch of writing in lowercase letters. But it's fascinating nonetheless and gives lots of room for the reader to project their own meaning onto it.

Like this one, which I clearly interpreted as the troubling confession of a heartbroken mall Easter bunny coming to terms with bisexuality (or possibly polyamory?):

Of course, the results weren't always as eerily esoteric as that.

The scientific paper details the researchers' attempts to write the right algorithm to instruct their AI accordingly. One of the major steps they realized was the need to give it some limitations — because without any other parameters, "Connect these two sentences! Go!" didn't go as well as they hoped…

To be fair, that's basically like handing a dictionary to a child and telling them to make a sentence. Which is why the researchers got nonsense like this, too:

You can spot some semblance of logic here — why word B would follow word A and so on. Unfortunately, these examples, ya know, don't make sense.

Eventually, the researchers figured out that a more gradual transition was required to get the Google Brain to produce anything resembling a natural sentence progression.

The resulting algorithm is what gives this accidental Google poetry its hypnotic repetitions of anaphora and diacope and other cool poetic terms. Again, it's not intentionally employing these clever literary devices.

But it's certainly cool that it does!

While this Google Brain poetry opens up a lot of cool philosophical questions about language and more, it's probably not something we need to worry about too much. For now, anyway.

Google's AI research has come a long way since just last year when it threatened researchers with physical violence. (Oops!) It's certainly doing better than Microsoft's failed genocidal robot Twitter teen.

And frankly, if we are going to train machines to think and act like humans, it's probably better that we wean them on romance novels than, I don't know, "The Terminator" or something.

But, for now, it's pretty unlikely this algorithmic lyricist actually understands its own words. It's mostly just an excellent mimic, feeling out how to make sense of different contexts and common phrases. Slowly piecing together the pieces of a much bigger puzzle as it goes along.

Which, when you think about it, sounds pretty human after all.

Cute robots are helping us secretly record animal behavior like never before.

Imagine you're a dolphin, swimming in the ocean, talking to your dolphin BFFs about how great fish are or whatever dolphins talk about.

"Man, I could really go for a steak sometime, you know?" Image from Serguei S. Dukachev/Wikimedia Commons.

Then, suddenly, this weird little dude comes whirring up to you:

Image from John Downer Productions, used with permission.

This isn't some weird animal NSA project — this robot puffer fish is one of a growing handful of robotic spy animals researchers and filmmakers are unleashing into the wild.

At first glance, robot animals just look really funny.

Like this robo-tuna.

"GLUG!" Image from John Downer Productions, used with permission.

OK, and they're kinda cute.

Like this robo-turtle.

"'SUP, DUDES???" Image from John Downer Productions, used with permission.

But they're an incredibly useful way for humans to get close to wild animals without, you know, getting too close to wild animals.

Image from lin padgham/Flickr.

Emperor penguins, for instance, will panic and run away if a human gets too close.

This was a big problem for Dr. Yvon Le Maho of the University of Strasbourg. Back in 2014, he wanted to measure the heart rates of wild penguins, but he couldn't get close without panicking the animals.

So, instead, his team hit on something a little uncanny:

"Don't mind me. Totally normal penguin coming through." GIF from IBTimes.

It took a few tries to get the design right, but by using the little robo-spy penguin instead, the birds remained chill (and even sang songs to their visitor), and the researchers were able to get the data and footage they needed.

These robo-spy animals also help humans stay safe — whether they're doing research or filming documentaries.

While penguins will run away if approached, there are some other animals who are a little too...

GIF via John Downer Productions/YouTube.

...rambunctious for humans to get close to safely.

"Cameramen can only get so close," says Rob Pilley, a zoologist and producer for John Downer Productions.

In filming "Polar Bears: Spy on the Ice," the teamopted to create cameras camouflaged as snowballs (above) and icebergs. Though a few cameras had to be sacrificed for the project (polar bears love to chew on unusual objects), the filmmakers were able to get amazing close-up footage of the polar bears that would've been near impossible to get otherwise.

Ever wanted to know what a polar bear's breath smells like? GIF via John Downer Productions/YouTube.

Thanks to these robo-spies, we've been able to film, measure, and discover things we've never seen before.

Pilley's team documented dolphins working together with rays to hunt fish and using seaweed like feather boas, for example. They also recorded dolphins playing with — and maybe even getting high off of — toxic puffer fish.

Just say no to puffer fish, kids. Image from Leszek Leszczynski/Flickr.

These robo-spies could even help save endangered species.

Vultures don't have the best PR, but they're actually an amazingly important clean-up crew and help keep environments healthy. Unfortunately, a lot of them are dying off.

To help preserve the species, tech company Microduino and the International Centre for Birds of Prey are planning to secretly slip 3D-printed robo-eggs into the nests of endangered vulture species. The eggs will be packed with tiny sensors that will relay data to scientists who can use the information the eggs record, like temperature and humidity, to create better artificial incubators for endangered vulture species.

And because the eggs look identical, the vultures will be none the wiser to their scientific visitors (and much happier than if a scientist tried to poke their big, human face in there)!

A vulture investigates a spy-egg prototype. GIF from Microduino Studio/YouTube.

The egg is still in prototype phase, but the team is excited.

"If this project succeeds, we can transfer the same technology to help save other species around the world," Microduino CEO Bin Feng told Upworthy.

So yeah, robot animal spies are kind of funny-looking.

"Fwoosh." GIF via John Downer Productions/YouTube.

But they're also super cool and innovative tools we can use to help keep animals alive and learn more about the world around us.

From Your Site Articles

10 amazing times things were camouflaged by pure coincidence. - Upworthy ›

First-graders are learning how to code, and it's easier than you think.

It's time to teach our kids to control their technology instead of the other way around.

Becoming a parent changes your perspective on everything. Just ask dad and entrepreneur Vikas Gupta.

Gupta is a computer whiz whose company, Jambool, was acquired by Google in 2010; right around that time, he and his wife welcomed their first child, a daughter, into the world. Needless to say, life was good for his family.

In an effort to celebrate life, Gupta and his wife left their jobs to travel around Europe and show their baby girl the beauty of the world.

Gupta enjoyed daddy-daughter bonding, but he felt he could do more to help children all over the world. All photos from Wonder Workshop and used with permission.

But as Gupta looked into his daughter's eyes, he couldn't help but wonder what would come next. Traveling the world wouldn't last forever, yet he cherished that time with his daughter.

"I realized that I wasn't ready to give up these bonding moments easily," Gupta told Upworthy. "Whatever I did next needed to mean something and make a positive difference in the world."

It was time for him to go back to work, and in doing so, he would introduce kids to something he loves deeply: coding.

It's no secret that Gupta believes learning technology is essential, but his real aha moment came when he noticed what other countries are doing to help young children embrace the tech world.

And no, "embracing the tech world" doesn't mean having a kid glued to a tablet for hours on end playing Angry Birds.

Get off that iPad, kid!

It's about teaching our kids to control the technology they use, not the other way around.

For example, the tiny country of Estonia teaches their first-grade students how to code. In contrast, Gupta noticed that 90% of high schools in the U.S. do not offer computer science classes. It doesn't take a computer genius to realize that elementary schools in the U.S. probably aren't teaching computer science either.

"I wanted to find the solution that will engage young kids and be an effective tool for them to learn to code on their own," Gupta said.

His solution? Robots. Adorable but highly intelligent robots.

Gupta created a company called Wonder Workshop that uses robotics to teach code in a way that a first-grader can understand.

Meet the two stars of the show.

Dash is a robot that kids can program to dance, race, and have a variety of adventures with by using simple drag-and-drop tablet interfaces on Wonder Workshop's free apps.

It comes preprogrammed with a variety of different sounds (kids can record their own sounds, too), and it can detect and identify the sound of someone's voice.

Be warned, parents. In some cases kids will use their coding skills to help Dash pull pranks on grown-ups. But, hey — at least they're learning some useful, right?

Gotcha, Mom! GIF via Wonder Workshop/YouTube.

Dot, the little blue ball on top, acts as the "brain" of the robot. Kids can code it to play over 100 different games using the app.

Meet Dot, the tiny blue robot.

Hot potato is one of many examples.

GIF via Wonder Workshop/YouTube.

Think of Dot as the entry-level course to robotics and coding.

"Not only are the bots designed to grow and learn with their child user, but the kids themselves can code their own programs and customize their bots with their own unique personalities," Gupta said.

But what makes Dash and Dot cool and revolutionary?

"They solve a problem that most parents, kids, and teachers face," Gupta said. "They keep children engaged in computer science without making it boring, tedious, and complicated."

Most importantly, they solve the problem by not being gender or age specific. Boys and girls love the robots. Same with teenagers and toddlers. It's pretty rare to find a toy that checks all of those boxes while being educational at the same time.

Wonder Workshop even caught the attention of Melinda Gates who recently called Dash "the most fun way to foster coding skills through robotics."

Melinda's husband, Bill, backed her up, too.

That's high praise.

It's just the kind of difference Gupta imagined when he thought about doing something that would affect the world and help kids like his young daughter.

In fact, Melinda Gates said the most meaningful gift she ever received was an Apple III computer from her dad when she was in high school because it fostered a love of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). Gupta hopes he will inspire young children with Dash and Dot as well.

It definitely looks like he's on the right track.