Anti Memory Hole

The value of a blog? We get to remember things that happened a few months ago - an ad-hoc diary if you will. In July 2006 Tom blogged about the video that NOVA ScienceNow has on their website ...

Max, Jasper, Nyein, Joe, Michael and I were all present, preparing in the morning (cleaning the office, testing the robot, setting up the rig, etc.) and then working different parts of the demo and discussion in the afternoon. As I mentioned before, a chain broke right before they got there, but we were able to repair it quickly, thanks to Nyein. Jasper and Nyein handled the bottom end of the ribbon plus the robot while Max handled robot control from the roof.

I won’t go into detail on all the filming, but it’s always interesting and amusing to see the ways in which TV shows are created. We did a few takes on having Neil walk up to Michael and I on the roof holding the robot, and start talking about the space elevator. It starts with Michael and I holding the robot and looking like we’re discussing work on it. Of course, we always work on the robot in our shirt and ties on the blacktop roof in the blazing sun, right?