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Breakout Artist
Dean Kamen, multimillionaire inventrepreneur, is going global with a robochair that climbs stairs, a miracle motor that fights disease, and his wildest notion of all - that scientists will be the 21st century's superstars.
By Scott Kirsner FIRST.)
Xerox chair Paul Allaire, who is smitten enough with the event to sit on the First board, is skeptical. "Is it totally practical? I'm dubious. But it's a good, if lofty, goal."
Another First board member, Bill Murphy, chair of Small Parts, waves off naysayers. "You watch," he says. "Dean's a schemer. He won't quit until it happens."
Walking the halls backstage at EMU, Kamen bemoans how difficult his mission to change the culture has been. "The inertia is enormous," he says. "If I'd have known nine years ago that it would've taken this much energy, I ..." He falls silent. But there's only one way Kamen can finish the thought: "Hell, I still would've done it."
When the finals begin, the excitement increases palpably. In the first game of the best-of-three finals, Chief Delphi pokes its snout into its opponent's goal, sucks out three balls, and skitters over to deposit them in its own goal. As the seconds tick away, it snatches another two points. Delphi's red alliance wins the first match, 34 to 16.
The "NCAA of smarts" is just as Kamen would have it: High school kids treat engineers like celebrities. And build robots that make the crowd roar.
The next match goes to blue. "It happens like this every time," Kamen says gleefully.
In the rubber match, the action centers on the chin-up bar. Both blue alliance robots manage to hang, seizing the lead. But Visteon, Chief Delphi's red alliance partner, charges blue's Techno Beast, knocks it down, and, in the waning seconds, pulls itself up to the bar for the win. The audience roars.
Sly and the Family Stone's "You Can Make It if You Try" blasts over the PA, and the First judges form a receiving line. Hundreds of teens line the aisles, exchanging high-fives.
Heading back to Willow Run airport, Kamen is thinking ahead to the nationals at Epcot Center in Orlando. He's campaigning to get Governor Jeb Bush, who will attend the finals, to pledge that every Florida public school will participate next year.
Meanwhile, the Ibot is sailing through FDA trials and could be available by early 2001. ER star Noah Wyle is planning to make a feature film about Kamen and First. And work on the Stirling engine is going well, though, of course, not fast enough for Kamen.
On the flight back to Manchester, he cracks a joke over the intercom about pilots reporting basketball scores in midflight. "Who cares about bounce-bounce-throw?" he asks.
I ask if he knows the outcome of the First regionals at the Kennedy Space Center. "Let me call ground control," he says, mimicking a pilot-controller exchange. "Ground, this is Citation six-Delta-Kilo. Do you have the results of the First regionals in Florida?"
Everyone laughs, and then K. C. Connors, First's regional manager and Kamen's girlfriend, chimes in. "A few more years, Dean," she says. "A few more years."
Dean Kamen, multimillionaire inventrepreneur, is going global with a robochair that climbs stairs, a miracle motor that fights disease, and his wildest notion of all - that scientists will be the 21st century's superstars.
By Scott Kirsner FIRST.)
Xerox chair Paul Allaire, who is smitten enough with the event to sit on the First board, is skeptical. "Is it totally practical? I'm dubious. But it's a good, if lofty, goal."
Another First board member, Bill Murphy, chair of Small Parts, waves off naysayers. "You watch," he says. "Dean's a schemer. He won't quit until it happens."
Walking the halls backstage at EMU, Kamen bemoans how difficult his mission to change the culture has been. "The inertia is enormous," he says. "If I'd have known nine years ago that it would've taken this much energy, I ..." He falls silent. But there's only one way Kamen can finish the thought: "Hell, I still would've done it."
When the finals begin, the excitement increases palpably. In the first game of the best-of-three finals, Chief Delphi pokes its snout into its opponent's goal, sucks out three balls, and skitters over to deposit them in its own goal. As the seconds tick away, it snatches another two points. Delphi's red alliance wins the first match, 34 to 16.
The "NCAA of smarts" is just as Kamen would have it: High school kids treat engineers like celebrities. And build robots that make the crowd roar.
The next match goes to blue. "It happens like this every time," Kamen says gleefully.
In the rubber match, the action centers on the chin-up bar. Both blue alliance robots manage to hang, seizing the lead. But Visteon, Chief Delphi's red alliance partner, charges blue's Techno Beast, knocks it down, and, in the waning seconds, pulls itself up to the bar for the win. The audience roars.
Sly and the Family Stone's "You Can Make It if You Try" blasts over the PA, and the First judges form a receiving line. Hundreds of teens line the aisles, exchanging high-fives.
Heading back to Willow Run airport, Kamen is thinking ahead to the nationals at Epcot Center in Orlando. He's campaigning to get Governor Jeb Bush, who will attend the finals, to pledge that every Florida public school will participate next year.
Meanwhile, the Ibot is sailing through FDA trials and could be available by early 2001. ER star Noah Wyle is planning to make a feature film about Kamen and First. And work on the Stirling engine is going well, though, of course, not fast enough for Kamen.
On the flight back to Manchester, he cracks a joke over the intercom about pilots reporting basketball scores in midflight. "Who cares about bounce-bounce-throw?" he asks.
I ask if he knows the outcome of the First regionals at the Kennedy Space Center. "Let me call ground control," he says, mimicking a pilot-controller exchange. "Ground, this is Citation six-Delta-Kilo. Do you have the results of the First regionals in Florida?"
Everyone laughs, and then K. C. Connors, First's regional manager and Kamen's girlfriend, chimes in. "A few more years, Dean," she says. "A few more years."
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