♪♪ (indistinct man speaking over radio) ...uh, that's the appropriate direction,

45 degrees from zenith, towards the port. (transmissions continue) ...20 seconds to handover... oh, my god. this is beautiful. isn't it? male reporter: ...the future, with growth and coding jobs forecast to be double that of job growth overall. the programming pool will simply have to grow to keep up with demand. -is it less than 20? no. -yeah. is it equal to 40? yeah. do this. -then it's gonna be 41. -yeah, yeah, yeah. -it's less than 20. now. -yeah, yeah, yeah. is it equal to 40? now. all right, keep... right, right, right, right, right. the last thing...

my name's tanner marcoida. i'm from east side, san jose, and i work for campbell middle school. the language of this area has a lot to with being able to code. it's important to know a little bit about coding just to have a job. so it's become very important to me to help students grasp that. this is my first opportunity to take a crack at zero robotics, but this is very hands-on. i have this time with this choice and this mind to make a difference. woman: this is a robotics competition in which students program autonomous little satellites inside the international space station. with the middle school competition, we're trying to engage the marginalized, disengaged youth so that what happens is eventually we'll see a diversification of that pipeline. this is what your kids will be programming. the robot is the sphere. woman: look at the port getting set up for the spheres experiment

that's about to take place on the space station... man: ...they are little robots. they are little satellites. they fly inside the space station. woman: as part of a competition, students write algorithms for the spheres satellites to accomplish tasks relevant to future space missions. there will be a code on station from california. which of your team's code will it be? who knows. and then, will your state take the full title? your mission is to build surveying satellites to orbit mars. that is the space race right now. one of the things that your satellite has to do is deploy three-- what we call satellite position system devices, or sps devices to find your assembly zone. now that you've dropped your spses, there are some satellite parts that have been pre-deployed. you can see there's three types of items worth different amount of points. so part of your strategy is gonna be deciding

which items to take to your assembly zone. and the other thing is, once your item's in your assembly zone, it can be stolen. another team can take an item out of your assembly zone. so another thing to keep in mind... katie: it's kind of thinking of the strategy, all the possible, you know-- hope for the best, prepare for the worst -right. -right? -no pressure. -yeah, right? (laughs) okay. in a couple months. the world is increasingly running on code. and this is a skill that our kids need to learn. it's also a skill that's not taught in school. yet it is something that is the future. so we really capitalize on the time during the summer for them to develop this skill. tanner: coding can be pretty unforgiving. if you don't put in the right code, it doesn't work, and i think that them being able to see inspirational stories about space and why we explore

gives them an opportunity to be inspired in those moments where coding can get really tricky. my name is makayla, i am 11 years old, and i'm thinking of being a marine biologist. tanner was just talking about it. he was explaining that it was gonna be about coding. i've never done this before, and, uh, it just got in my head, and i wanted to do it. i-- i think this is a good learning experience too. we're going to be able to simulate what our sphere is going to do. and it's gonna show you what it would do in actual... my name is advik, and i'm ten years old. and, uh, when i grow up, i don't really know what i wanna do yet. i just think it's cool that you can make something from earth go out and visit other places. tanner: this is the beginnings

of what you guys are gonna be programming the sphere to do. you're gonna have to write a lot of code, and it's gonna take every single one of you to make sure that our code is one of the best in the nation. my name is carol. i'm 11 years old. when i grow up, i wanna be a robotic engineer. what is the export here? negative 1. negative 1. and y coordinate is negative 2. i've always been fascinated about robots and a lot of technology. but i just wanna help build stuff that could be useful for people. girl: we need to adapt this a little bit more, 'cause i feel like it's not... carol: it makes me really happy that i get to help. people have helped me along the way, and i wanna help them too. this mat, this is the size of our game grid. carol: i like that i get to help other people who don't understand math. because i get to see what other people are doing and their ideas, and that they might have a possibility of going into space.

tanner: the fact that they're playing a part in something that's much bigger than just them or our school, or our country, i mean-- we're talking space, so... real excited to, you know, to do that with them. (speaking spanish)

man: welcome to chess, earth versus space. chess is a great game for stimulating young minds, for analytical thinking, which is so important in all aspects of life, but especially math, science, and engineering. all the things that make the space station possible, and our way of life possible. it's my move now. i've got this velcro chess board here that keeps the pieces from flying away. it's your move. good luck. man: ...to form teams to find creative engineering solutions... man: ...robotics teams have been working

in a worldwide challenge. using coding skills to see who can do it best. randy, permission to dock. go ahead. you're gonna be first to act. woman: ...to operate the sphere satellites on board... tanner: three spaces right. one, two, three. so you guys have 1.2. man: and then the finals takes place on the space station by the crew themselves in real time. mission control: this is mission control houston. working, uh, in warp speed practically. the major objective of this spacewalk now complete. a smiling jack fischer in the airlock. with his first spacewalk in the books... woman: we are ready to begin when you are. massachusetts institute of technology, this is mission control houston. uh, i'm mike collins. uh, jack, i wish i was up there with you. uh... is that the mike collins? -no, no. it-- -(laughter) sir, it's a-- what an honor. man: ...armstrong, collins, and aldrin... man: we have a liftoff, on apollo 11.

jack: you know, i think that inspiration is hard to quantify, but has such a huge impact, so that's what you did, sir, and that's what we hope we can continue to do uh, to get the next generation going and to really get this whole space exploration thing moving for good. you certainly are doing it, jack, uh, big time, and a lot better than we ever did. thank you for your work up there. (applause) female reporter: san jose tonight now on track to becoming the hottest housing market in the entire country this year. prices are... ...most recently with apple and google, to move here. shocked by how much homes are selling...

tanner: that's where this whole new diridon district is gonna be developed. so that's the water building right there. yeah. (scoffs) bam. these condos are gonna go up to house the people that are gonna be getting jobs in this area. hopefully those are the-- the housing that they go for, and not the housing that kind of belongs to the people that have been living in this area for a long time. they don't know what kind of change that's gonna come, but the change is already, you know-- it's gonna happen. it's inevitable. i feel it. it's an everyday thing for me, you know? like, it's all connected. excuse me, boss. might throw it up there. i think the name of the game right now is survival, for a lot of us. everybody is struggling. you know, there's been plenty of times in my life where i've, like, balled myself up into the fetal position

and, you know, like... but then you gotta snap yourself out of it at some point, and if i can teach these kids that, "hey, you're gonna have to snap yourself out of this a lot, so you better get practicing now with this robotics program, yeah, then there is a life lesson in there. it's all a part of making them able to survive in this area and stay if they want to. so... getting these kids to find their fast track, or just get to get on track, actually, so that they can see what possibilities they can have, is really important. boy: excited about playing the game, because we learn a lot of stuff from it. ways to destroy our enemies. yeah. (laughter) if we don't do that, then we'll probably learn a lot, so we can destroy them in the future. -yeah. -yeah. get together and destroy your enemy--

you know tanner's motto. our enemies is ourselves. why are we competing with ourselves instead of the other teams? we can be stronger together and be a stronger link. frank sinatra: ♪ fly me to the moon ♪ let me play among the stars ♪ tanner: what's sps stand for? girl: uh, satellite positioning system. do we know where the assembly zone is ahead of time? all: no. we have to know where it is by setting out the sps site. yeah. and then-- and then the space parts. there's a, uh, large, medium, and small... i start, i determine where i want to put my three spses. drop sps. from here, i will reveal assembly zone. now that my assembly zone as been revealed, i now need to pick up satellite pieces and bring them to my assembly zone to be assembled. move one space forward, rotate 90 degrees right, dot small, and move two spaces back. so it's all based on this strategy.

what's the value of each action? this game is over. the red sphere with 2.75, and the blue sphere with 2.45. (cheering) good job to both. the red team won this game. -good job. good job. -good job. good job. good job. good job. they were learning, we were learning, and i-- i want you guys to try to figure out a strategy that's gonna give us the upper hand. we haven't came up with a good strategy for... we can't play with this strategy. we have to figure out something that's gonna give us an advantage. okay? three, two, one. we're the ones with pretty faces. we're gonna win the space race. -we're gonna win this-- -space race, okay? (laughter) (speaking spanish)

one of the things i hope you learn today is that you can go from this room and from your school and from your house to anywhere in the world. you wanna keep going towards your dream, okay? this is an actual picture i drew 50 years ago. it's a picture of a rocket ship, and across the top it says "steve." and so my dream very early on was to go into space. in two weeks, we're gonna have the regional competition of zero robotics.

the best code will then represent the state of california, and that is the code that i will send to the space station that will compete against all of the other states in the country, as well as russia. man: rendezvous with the hubble telescope. and you'll see-- checking out the suits before going... how many of you, if you could get a free ride into space, would take it? how many would take it? okay. most of you. good. so if you were selected to be on the space station, my observation is that the early years and the middle years of a young person's life are the crucial years for them to get exposure to different opportunities, and to find out where their passion is. we want people to join our nation's technology effort. our space program needs strong engineers and scientists.

but at the end, the work that technology people do, the work that people do at nasa is making people's lives better. by gathering information to solve problems we have, for example, or to help us make our lives more simple or more productive. what spaceships did you fly? discovery, endeavor, and atlantis. so i asked the astronaut how many, um, how many astronauts do you think are in-- live in san jose, and he said about three to four. how many times did, uh, steve get turned down? -four! -four times. but did that-- but did that stop him? -no. -so... so how however many times you guys fall, you better get up one more time, right? boy: you better get up. steve: life in zero gravity, it's very magical. you're in this environment, of course, where things don't weigh anything. you can sleep on the wall. you can move massive objects.

when you look out the window and you see this beautiful earth, this place where we live, the planet, to look at how fragile it looks in space, we are one global community. you don't see any borders. this is a very magical-- magical place. let's go over there, makayla. that way. check it out. makayla: my goal is to become a marine biologist one day. i love the ocean. you know? it's sort of like space because we haven't learned all about space and under-- underwater. like, the very bottom of the ocean.

you can discover stuff that people haven't discovered yet. -look at him. -got one. (laughter) try again. try again. what i've learned about for this program, it's just brought me to think, "why not just try to do both?" because it's, like, um, because the-- the water's just, like, the zero gravity. close as you can get. terry: i wasn't surprised that she jumped on this program. she was excited. i mean, she just-- first she was probably a little shy about it. but then once she gets into it, um, you know, she kind of blossomed, so i-- i think that's kinda what happened. yes. i loved the trip to nasa. we went to this plane simulation. it looked like you-- you felt like you were actually flying it?

-yes. -are you kidding? i didn't know-- you didn't tell me about that. makayla: they allowed me to actually sit in the chair, and-- terry: oh, really? (laughs) terry: wow. it's too bad you never met my dad. because my dad was a pilot. he would have loved to have taught you how to fly. when i came to live with my grandparents, um, it was-- at first, it was just me and lily. because i-- (sighs) it was... it was actually easy. because i had-- i had one sister with me and she was going through the same thing as me at that moment in time. i just wanted to think about her. so... yeah. ♪ little do you know how i'm breaking ♪ ♪ while you fall asleep ♪ little do you know i'm still haunted ♪ ♪ by the memory ♪

♪ little do you know i'm trying to pick myself up... ♪ terry: makayla and lily have been here, um, it'll be-- been here five years. ♪ need a little more time and then adriana will be here two years this christmas. makayla: that's my dad. and that's me. tiny me. terry: there were some unfortunate circumstances that caused it to happen. but it was necessary for them to come live with us. there were some changes, obviously, because, you know, i'm a lot older, my kids are grown up, and now i'm basically having children again. but i can't imagine my life without her. without any of 'em. woman: and so, speaking of space, what have you got over here? man: okay, so this bad boy is called spheres. the story behind spheres was, uh, a professor at mit had one of his senior projects, uh, and he showed the clip

"a new hope," of luke practicing with the little droid floating around. and he said, "i want you to make me one of those." and that's-- that's what they did. (groans) (laughs) man: you already have these things in the space station. here's a sphere. man: so all you have to do is just reprogram it to do whatever you-- you want. these things are able to validate and verify a lot of algorithms and ideas and new sensors that they can maybe implement on larger spacecraft. your object is to get your sphere, your droid, to go and dock with the emoji and bring it back here to this assembly zone. you have 30 seconds to do that. one, go! (children shouting) tanner: are they docked? oh, yeah. (children shouting) boy: 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6... tanner: oh, your code is flawed. oh, i'll take it. all right. good job. clap it up. clap it up.

that was good. that was good. all right. carol: my parents just want us to do things that we actually like and not doing jobs that we don't. we don't do that much coding at school. so they told me to do it 'cause i could learn something new. tanner: how many docking sides does our sphere have? -children: one. -tanner: one. carol: i'm interested in the spheres and being able to control them. in this class, we all have different things that we're good at. and we have to work together to code the sphere to win. for california. tanner: what did i ask you to do after you docked? go back to the assembly zone. okay, so that's what you guys are doing. so each one of your... basically the whole point why nasa did this is because they wanted to have code that satellites can go around mars, and it helps them position the satellites so that they don't run into each other. but, like, be, uh, synchronized. that's in the name, uh, sphere.

synchronized position hold engage reorient, um, experimental satellites. when you guys program your code, we import the code into the spheres inside the space station. makayla: so we code the sphere to drop the satellite positioning systems, the spses, which help us find our assembly zone. tanner: for that gps system that you guys created, you're getting .855 points automatically for dropping the spses in that triangle. makayla: and once we find that, we go for the large item, and then maybe the medium, and then the small. tanner: so not only do we have to be in the right spot to dock, the attitude of our sphere needs to be facing the correct direction. carol: in the actual computer game, we had to set the coordinates to move around and rotate the sphere. and then find out what side to face to dock with different large, medium, and small pieces. tanner: so that you know where your sphere needs to be, to dock.

-follow? capisce? -capisce. all right. so... advik: the whole game is basically capture the flag, and the hard part was learning a really good strategy, and trying to figure out how to do this in the graphical editor. all right, let's check out this simulation. let's see if we get some points here. carol: we have to work together to plan ahead. because what the other team-- we just don't know what's gonna happen, so we can't change anything. if you were looking at the other team's strategy, what would you guess this one is? going to the closest satellite piece. going to the next satellite piece. so you can... advik: from the first day till now, we've progressed a lot. learning the game and learning how everything docks and drops, and how many moves we can do, and, like, everything. -hi, mom. -hi.

smitha: i work at google. i'm a technical program manager. and there's a lot of need to have these skills. uh, we started... three years ago. so coding is one of the many things that we're trying to introduce to him. advik: and that i like-- i still do. it is kind of frustrating, uh, some parts, where, like, the code doesn't work, or you don't know what's happening. our team won the first time and lost the second. when advik was 6 1/2 years old, he came home one day, and he said, "can we go back to india, or can you change my skin?" i said, "why are you saying that?" "'cause my friend told me i don't belong here." that was a big, um, uh, wakeup moment for us. i just-- we just wanted him to be very happy in his own skin

and with his own lifestyle. praveen: i want him to discover his passion and just pursue it, like, wholeheartedly. growing up back in india, we were all expected to be an engineer or a doctor. usually that's the two most promising careers in india. uh, that's not the case here... you're an engineer and your brother and sister are... -doctors. -doctors. yeah. so you're the only outcast. and you're the only one who lives in america. -yes. yes. -(laughs) outcast. so far-- far from family, yes. siblings are still in india, yes. remember this? this was, uh, your first hike. yeah, you're still-- you're wearing jeans, which is not appropriate for the hike. and then here we have... couple weeks ago. yeah, so that is from couple of weeks ago. yes. the difference. yeah. in sequoia, we saw all the stars at night, right? mm-hmm. yeah. that was cool.

-yeah, so-- -so many. this gives you a whole different perspective on, like, how small we are. some of those stars are literally millions of light years away. they're that far, and the universe is so big. there's so much else. there's a lot to space and astronomy. yeah, that's... i want to go to space. -you want to go to space? -yeah. oh, okay. this is first time i'm hearing you say that. (laughs) well, it's-- it's good. there's a whole other world out there that we need to explore. man: seven, six, five, four... and ignition, two, one, zero. and liftoff. countdown to mars continues. touchdown confirmed. receive... (all cheering)

they were testing out how would you control a rover from orbit. 'cause there are certain delays associated with the communication, and it's so far away that you have seconds, maybe even minutes of delay, right? how do you control a robot on a far-off world like mars? so this rover-scape was built to test out... advik: everybody's saying, "oh, we need to move to mars. the earth is gonna blow up," and stuff like that. um, soon, but not yet. well, like, it's gonna get overheated, and everybody's saying it's gonna flood, 'cause, like, the-- all the global warming is melting the glaciers. if it does melt everything, then the whole earth will be flooded. i really want to try and stop global warming. i think it comes from wanting to help the environment.