Robotics and STEM Outreach: Meet Alisa Gilmore

College of Engineering Author

01/25/2019 Added

117 Plays

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Combining her love of engineering and robotics with a passion for STEM outreach programs for kids, Alisa Gilmore is helping to reach the next generations of engineers.

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[00:00:00.624](celebratory music)
[00:00:02.417]Welcome to the Complete Engineering podcast
[00:00:04.430]brought to you by the College of Engineering.
[00:00:06.620]We are Nebraska, where we build complete engineers
[00:00:09.780]with the technical and non-technical skills
[00:00:11.920]to do big things.
[00:00:13.390]Visit us at engineering.unl.edu.
[00:00:16.977](celebratory music)
[00:00:18.997]Hi, and welcome to another episode
[00:00:20.270]of the Complete Engineering Podcast.
[00:00:22.060]I'm Matt Honke.
[00:00:23.190]I'm Carl Vogel.
[00:00:24.350]And we're with the University of Nebraska
[00:00:26.310]College of Engineering.
[00:00:27.415]Today we're lucky enough to have Alisa Gilmore,
[00:00:30.235]Associate Professor of Practice in Electrical
[00:00:32.720]and Computer Engineering with us.
[00:00:34.300]Welcome Alisa.
[00:00:35.516]Thank you, glad to be here.
[00:00:37.210]Part of what Alisa does, her area of expertise
[00:00:40.470]is in robotics, electrical circuitry, correct?
[00:00:44.140]Telecommunications and the like,
[00:00:45.640]but we want to start off talking a little bit about
[00:00:48.530]one of the other things you do.
[00:00:50.430]You have a role as a coordinator
[00:00:52.800]for the Nebraska Robotics Expo.
[00:00:54.610]Can you give us a little insight,
[00:00:56.800]what is the Nebraska Robotics Expo
[00:00:58.740]and what is the role that the coordinator plays?
[00:01:01.720]So the Nebraska Robotics Expo
[00:01:03.550]has been going on for 10 years.
[00:01:05.370]This is our tenth year, and we bring together
[00:01:07.650]about 350 students K through 12, and we celebrate robotics.
[00:01:13.030]They work with their teachers during the year,
[00:01:15.600]we meet with them a couple times a year,
[00:01:18.030]and so that was our big event to give them something
[00:01:21.400]to look forward to when they're working in STEM
[00:01:24.510]and using the robot to excite them about STEM.
[00:01:28.010]It really is about engaging the next generation
[00:01:32.410]of future engineers and strengthening the pipe line,
[00:01:35.510]and it's a wonderful project that the Nebraska Engineering
[00:01:40.080]has been a part of for these 10 years,
[00:01:43.090]and it's, we've been sustained.
[00:01:44.350]We started out with NSF funded, and now we've
[00:01:46.610]been self sustained for the last several years.
[00:01:49.890]As the coordinator, my job is to essentially
[00:01:53.365]get a team together at the beginning of the year
[00:01:57.210]and make sure that we're all doing what we need to do
[00:02:01.330]to make the event run on time,
[00:02:03.970]and to get all the elements, bring all the people together,
[00:02:06.960]be it sponsors, we have vendors, we have a great team
[00:02:11.860]we work together with in the UNO College of Education,
[00:02:15.410]so it's really a cross campus collaboration.
[00:02:18.980]There's a lot of synergy on this team.
[00:02:20.938]We've worked with K through 12 teachers across the metro,
[00:02:24.343]actually across the state of Nebraska.
[00:02:27.393]My job is to say, "Okay, here's, we need to start now."
[00:02:31.946]I just keep us moving along, and I see to it
[00:02:34.960]that all the details are in place,
[00:02:36.860]so that when we go, it's a go.
[00:02:39.123]It's a positive experience, it runs well.
[00:02:43.170]We're all ready to go.
[00:02:44.770]That's my role.
[00:02:46.000]What are some of the things that these students do
[00:02:49.100]to prepare for participating in this?
[00:02:51.010]There, I believe, is a first Lego competition
[00:02:54.380]that they have, and then there's also
[00:02:55.890]scene bot competitions.
[00:02:57.020]What are the differences between those
[00:02:58.501]and what are the type of activities
[00:03:00.207]that they do at the expo?
[00:03:02.164]You're correct, so at the expo
[00:03:04.643]there's actually three events.
[00:03:06.853]There's the scene bot showcase, and that is the scene bot
[00:03:09.940]that is the Nebraska created robot.
[00:03:12.740]That's the one we work with K through 12 teachers,
[00:03:15.600]so we train the teachers, and the teachers
[00:03:17.603]are really the stars, I say, because they volunteer
[00:03:22.130]and they get their kids involved
[00:03:24.230]either in the classroom while their teaching
[00:03:26.310]science and math curriculum because there's lessons
[00:03:29.490]that directly align, work with the robotic
[00:03:32.110]to their standards, and then they bring the kids on
[00:03:35.770]either during class or in the after school club,
[00:03:39.097]and then they have something to look forward to,
[00:03:42.020]to actually compete and have fun in our event.
[00:03:45.950]We come together with the first Lego league.
[00:03:48.360]First Lego league is run out of Nebraska four H.
[00:03:51.672]Also at UNL and the Lincoln campus.
[00:03:55.077]They have a series of competitions,
[00:03:58.470]and this is their grand event, their championship.
[00:04:02.010]They have teams from around the area, as well.
[00:04:05.270]Nebraska, and I think they may draw some from Iowa as well,
[00:04:08.070]so it's their state qualifier.
[00:04:10.820]We also have, going along with the idea of steam
[00:04:14.370]because it's not just about science, technology, math.
[00:04:17.470]Creativity, the arts.
[00:04:19.477]We have a creative visual arts expo that started
[00:04:22.570]about I'd say five or six years ago.
[00:04:25.140]They came on, we had an amazing art teacher
[00:04:28.090]who wanted to bring in, allow kids to create with robotics.
[00:04:33.420]I am a firm believer.
[00:04:35.240]As a kid I was very creative, I asked a lot of questions,
[00:04:38.409]and sometimes people think of an engineer
[00:04:41.010]as not very creative, right?
[00:04:43.440]Creativity's not the first thing that comes to your mind,
[00:04:45.590]or at all when you think of engineer,
[00:04:47.140]but I am a firm believer that creativity is definitely,
[00:04:51.260]imagination is a part of that.
[00:04:53.888]We have those three events, and the kids do everything
[00:04:56.739]from creating robots out of 3D printed,
[00:05:01.790]and drawing, and painting, and it's just on display there
[00:05:05.000]while we're doing the physical robot activities as well.
[00:05:08.130]You mentioned that you get students obviously
[00:05:10.480]from Omaha, Lincoln, pry the metros,
[00:05:13.110]but how spread out is it?
[00:05:14.870]Are you finding students coming
[00:05:16.100]from small towns all across Nebraska?
[00:05:18.344]How is the interest at that K through 12 level
[00:05:21.680]with robotics?
[00:05:22.513]I would say for first Lego league,
[00:05:25.490]they would probably, they have a larger statewide reach.
[00:05:29.170]I know they have kids from all over.
[00:05:31.810]For our program, we started in the metro.
[00:05:33.836]We actually start focusing in the Omaha public schools
[00:05:37.610]because we really wanted to strengthen those relationships.
[00:05:41.720]Our teachers are primarily from Omaha,
[00:05:45.370]but we've had teachers come from Western Nebraska,
[00:05:49.552]and they have to travel quite a ways to get here,
[00:05:53.304]but we open it up to everyone.
[00:05:55.730]It's just logistically we tend to get those who are local,
[00:05:59.390]and that was the original mission of our project.
[00:06:02.123]Carl had mentioned earlier about having,
[00:06:05.550]what it takes to put on a successful expo.
[00:06:07.980]Obviously you need help from existing
[00:06:09.613]College of Engineering students.
[00:06:11.576]What do you do to recruit those students
[00:06:14.209]and what are they doing to help out
[00:06:16.310]to make this a successful event?
[00:06:18.510]And how many do you get, too?
[00:06:20.040]Because if I remember, it's a big number.
[00:06:22.610]Yeah, so every year we rely on
[00:06:24.408]50 to 60 students to volunteer.
[00:06:28.194]There is a course here that is a freshman level course
[00:06:31.990]taught by Dr. Mechin that he requires
[00:06:34.160]service learning hours.
[00:06:35.735]Most of those students, historically,
[00:06:38.100]have come from that class, but we open it up
[00:06:41.004]to anybody who wants to come.
[00:06:43.640]We've had students from Lincoln, the city campus,
[00:06:46.720]as well as the Scott campus.
[00:06:48.060]Most are from the Scott campus.
[00:06:49.656]They sign up and do volunteer hours,
[00:06:52.148]and without them we could not put this event on
[00:06:55.133]because, essentially, they are our muscle,
[00:06:57.594]and they are our judges, and they are the ones
[00:07:00.730]who are the boots on the ground and extend our reach of what
[00:07:04.610]the small team of 15 of us could do.
[00:07:07.670]They set up, we take over the
[00:07:10.040]Strategic Air and Space Museum.
[00:07:11.728]Every square inch, essentially.
[00:07:14.290]They set up all the tables, all the chairs.
[00:07:16.610]They set up all the games that we create from scratch
[00:07:20.700]every year and we redo the themes,
[00:07:23.620]and we bring some more creativity and imagination to it.
[00:07:26.430]They set those up.
[00:07:27.410]They learn the rules, and they serve as the judges.
[00:07:30.380]And then, when it's all over, they tear all of that down
[00:07:34.850]while we're having the award ceremony.
[00:07:37.440]The thing that's been touching is to see some students,
[00:07:40.670]you know, some they volunteer, they get the hours,
[00:07:43.610]they check it off, but students that come back
[00:07:46.280]year after year after doing that.
[00:07:48.360]They say "Aw, I want to do that.
[00:07:49.567]"That was so much fun!"
[00:07:50.890]The other thing that's been a thrill,
[00:07:53.040]last year, the last two years,
[00:07:54.715]to have our students who volunteer,
[00:07:57.440]who are in our programs, say "Oh I was a kid,
[00:08:01.312]I competed in this."
[00:08:03.190]And I remember, I remember their schools
[00:08:05.400]and now they're in our program,
[00:08:07.090]so that's just, it just is such a good feeling.
[00:08:10.770]And then they're back volunteering and helping the kids.
[00:08:14.430]I think it's so important because the little ones,
[00:08:17.480]they look up to them, and they're not that far from them.
[00:08:21.094]That makes a really big impact,
[00:08:23.030]and it also helps our students because they're giving back.
[00:08:25.750]They're seeing what they can do and they're helping out.
[00:08:29.412]I think most of them can appreciate it, the opportunity.
[00:08:35.000]I've, I know I've interacted with you at the expo before.
[00:08:38.200]I brought my daughter there, and I'm seeing her
[00:08:41.210]getting an interest in robotics and computer coding,
[00:08:44.990]and things like that. That's awesome.
[00:08:45.940]And then thinking that a lot of it might have to do
[00:08:48.480]with that beginning when I first brought her there.
[00:08:51.125]Are you seeing that with the students
[00:08:52.853]that are coming through the College of Engineering?
[00:08:54.730]That some of them have that experience now
[00:08:57.180]in that 10 years since the expo's been there.
[00:08:59.180]That that laid a foundation for where they are now.
[00:09:02.170]Well certainly the ones that we find out about.
[00:09:04.470]Unfortunately we're not doing a formal tracking.
[00:09:06.764]Right.
[00:09:07.597]I would love to do that, it's just
[00:09:08.510]we just happen to have struck up a conversation
[00:09:11.130]and say "oh yeah, I was in that."
[00:09:13.190]Oh my gosh!
[00:09:14.023]You know, so definitely for those students
[00:09:16.270]you would think that that definitely had a foundation
[00:09:19.290]and led to them coming to our program,
[00:09:21.890]but I just think, in general, when kids are exposed
[00:09:24.850]to things as youngsters it makes an impression.
[00:09:30.710]There's no, when you think about the memories you had
[00:09:32.920]as a kid, you may see something
[00:09:34.307]and you just get really happy.
[00:09:35.860]There are things that just make an imprint on you as a kid,
[00:09:38.400]and so that's one of the things
[00:09:39.970]that we want to do is to share our field.
[00:09:42.937]My field that I'm fascinated with.
[00:09:45.420]I think it's very interesting, and to bring it
[00:09:47.797]in a fun, creative, imagine, get the kids involved
[00:09:51.860]in imagination, and having fun,
[00:09:53.313]and then hopefully they can see a vision of what they can do
[00:09:58.260]or something they may be interested in.
[00:10:00.100]And I'm glad to hear that about your daughter.
[00:10:03.930]Speaking of childhood and influences,
[00:10:07.904]what helped influence you to become interested
[00:10:11.430]in engineering and specifically in robotics
[00:10:13.540]as you were growing up?
[00:10:14.960]I was good in math, I was pretty a well-rounded,
[00:10:19.180]good student, and I took physics my senior year.
[00:10:23.160]It was pretty late for me.
[00:10:24.510]And I love physics, and so I would go home
[00:10:27.890]and I would just study, I'm a real nerd.
[00:10:30.656](laughter)
[00:10:31.800]I would study, I would make notes.
[00:10:33.796]I didn't have to do that, I just did it because it was cool.
[00:10:37.230]I loved it.
[00:10:38.063](laughter)
[00:10:40.510]My dad would say "Oh, why don't you consider engineering?"
[00:10:45.220]Back then, nobody had these kind of events,
[00:10:48.100]so I didn't know what engineering was.
[00:10:50.300]He just said "Why don't you consider engineering?"
[00:10:51.860]I'm like oh okay, great.
[00:10:53.634]Talk to this person, they're an engineer, what do you do?
[00:10:55.860]And it's just like a bunch of goobly gock.
[00:10:57.730]You don't really understand it.
[00:10:59.523]But I said oh okay, well I had in the back of my mind.
[00:11:02.750]One of the things that really made an impression on me,
[00:11:04.690]in my physics class we had, I think he was a PhD student.
[00:11:08.410]He was African, and he came in
[00:11:10.290]and he helped my physics teacher.
[00:11:11.620]He was just like there helping.
[00:11:13.490]He came up and he gave an explanation about,
[00:11:17.289]something I had observed is when you go up in an elevator,
[00:11:20.930]you feel heavier, right?
[00:11:22.530]You just feel that weight.
[00:11:23.800]When you go down, you feel lighter.
[00:11:26.483]He explained how that's force is equal
[00:11:28.960]to mass times acceleration and Newton's laws
[00:11:31.677]that goes into that, and I just thought
[00:11:34.336]"Wow, that is so cool."
[00:11:37.670]I mean math has a purpose, you know you can use an equation
[00:11:41.920]to describe something I experience.
[00:11:44.120]I know I'm just nerding out right now.
[00:11:45.967](laughter)
[00:11:47.170]But that was something that just was like, wow.
[00:11:51.310]Math has a purpose.
[00:11:52.280]I was good in math, but I'm like, you know,
[00:11:54.799]it was just math, right?
[00:11:56.607]And so I'm like "Oh, you can really use this."
[00:11:59.900]I just kinda kept that in the back of my mind.
[00:12:01.760]I went to college visits,
[00:12:03.000]and I attended my first college, Spelman College,
[00:12:06.570]and they had a dual degree engineering program,
[00:12:09.150]and the lady that was talking, she was PhD in math,
[00:12:12.870]and she reminded me of my grandmother.
[00:12:16.240]She was African American woman, and worked with NASA,
[00:12:20.380]and she was talking about the engineering program.
[00:12:23.400]Those two experiences where my family planted the seed,
[00:12:27.045]and then I saw people that looked like me doing this
[00:12:31.020]and I was interested in it, then it's just like oh.
[00:12:34.200]Yeah, this is it.
[00:12:35.850]This is what I want to do.
[00:12:37.060]You really, we're recording this on the third floor
[00:12:39.620]of the Scott campus in Omaha, and I'm immediately,
[00:12:42.581]when we take the elevator down, I'm gonna pay attention now.
[00:12:45.248]Right, yeah. (laughter)
[00:12:46.480]I had never though of that before,
[00:12:48.410]which is probably one of the reasons
[00:12:49.570]I'm recording a podcast and not doing what you're doing.
[00:12:51.900](laughter)
[00:12:52.950]That's awesome though.
[00:12:54.410]A lot of getting to the point of where you are
[00:12:57.130]in your career is being inspired by somebody.
[00:12:59.313]As you mentioned, seeing somebody that looks like you,
[00:13:03.150]or acts like you, or has a similar background
[00:13:05.720]whose doing something that your interested in.
[00:13:08.110]How important is it for people, like parents, adults
[00:13:12.054]to model that type of thing for children?
[00:13:17.180]I'm talking as a parent of a 13 year old right now.
[00:13:20.680]How important is it for me to be a good model
[00:13:24.180]and encourage kids to pursue that type of thing?
[00:13:29.010]Well I think the biggest thing parents can do.
[00:13:31.890]I'm a parent, I have a 14 year old and a 17 year old,
[00:13:34.470]and so I observe a couple things.
[00:13:36.480]The first thing is that you just tell them
[00:13:39.250]that they can do anything.
[00:13:40.603]That you believe in them, right?
[00:13:44.420]Just that confidence that I'm behind you,
[00:13:47.624]I believe in you, I believe you can do this.
[00:13:50.040]But then, having people outside of you,
[00:13:52.630]because I know with my kids, I can say
[00:13:55.367]"Oh yeah, I see those qualities, you should be x, y, and z.
[00:13:59.157]"You would really be good in that."
[00:14:01.270]My son, who's 14, he's like "Oh yeah, no.
[00:14:03.197]"I don't want to do all that stuff that you do."
[00:14:05.330]But then he gets a survey, a career cluster survey,
[00:14:11.300]and guess what comes up as his highest, biggest thing?
[00:14:15.617]Computer engineer.
[00:14:18.300]And then, all of a sudden, he's like
[00:14:19.757]"Oh, I think I could really do this."
[00:14:21.590]And I'm like "Okay, let me just keep my mouth closed."
[00:14:25.550]I was just say, you know you love her.
[00:14:27.450]You know that she's gonna do great, whatever she chooses,
[00:14:30.730]and encouraging that, and then putting them,
[00:14:32.630]like the expo, in activities that expose them
[00:14:36.060]to experiences and other people that can show them
[00:14:39.860]a different path, and have a little more credibility
[00:14:42.970]in the kid mind than the parent.
[00:14:44.830]Even though, we should have credibility.
[00:14:47.790]You have a senior level robotics class
[00:14:49.267]that's been a very popular elective with the students.
[00:14:52.130]How does the class help students build a foundation
[00:14:54.770]for the rest of their academic and engineering careers?
[00:14:57.490]So yeah, so the Mobile Robotics One was created
[00:15:01.710]with the vision to be the final year of our scene class.
[00:15:06.230]The student get the scene bot freshman year,
[00:15:08.110]and they put it together.
[00:15:09.300]The idea was to have it to be a learning platform,
[00:15:12.040]so that it's active and they can use it
[00:15:14.810]instead of just learning about circuits on a notebook,
[00:15:18.456]to actually apply something and have something actually
[00:15:22.940]move around when they're learning programming.
[00:15:26.210]They build learning Microprocessor Programming,
[00:15:29.360]and they build to different levels.
[00:15:32.270]In my class, it's all about making the robot
[00:15:35.190]completely autonomous and intelligent.
[00:15:37.931]They get to incorporate additional sensors, condition those.
[00:15:43.690]They get to use more advance C-Programming tools
[00:15:47.900]than they have before, and they get to experiment
[00:15:51.100]with an artificial intelligence paradigm,
[00:15:53.750]I use behavior based programming.
[00:15:55.960]It gives them a flavor of something that is a paradigm
[00:16:00.023]that's not just AdHawk, but it gives them a structure
[00:16:03.840]so they can make it modular
[00:16:05.520]and to accomplish different goals with the various sensors.
[00:16:08.610]That gives them their first culminating
[00:16:10.780]of a true robot experience.
[00:16:12.720]They also learn feedback control,
[00:16:14.580]which is things that allow them to follow a line.
[00:16:17.190]It makes an airplane not go out of control as your going up,
[00:16:22.450]so they learn how to do that with the robot.
[00:16:24.520]That's another thing that they don't get other places.
[00:16:27.390]It's very, very useful and applicable.
[00:16:29.647]The K through 12 outreach from the Nebraska Robotics Expo
[00:16:33.810]has been very effective for 10 years now, obviously.
[00:16:37.065]Is there anything else you do in your position
[00:16:41.032]here at the college or outside the college
[00:16:43.880]that's K through 12 outreach in the STEM fields
[00:16:46.850]or any other kind of outreach?
[00:16:48.840]So that's it.
[00:16:49.817]That's what I'm able to, yeah.
[00:16:52.570]That's it as far as the K through 12.
[00:16:55.810]Before, when I was an engineer in Omaha,
[00:17:00.100]I participated in the MASA, I believe, the program with OPS
[00:17:04.510]where they have professionals come in
[00:17:06.260]and they talk to the kids about engineering
[00:17:07.940]and then try to encourage more diversity in engineering,
[00:17:11.240]so they targeted a group of kids.
[00:17:13.029]I loved that, that was the highlight of my day
[00:17:17.170]to go interface with the kids,
[00:17:19.130]cause they're so impressionable.
[00:17:20.449]You would hear, I would hear stories after speaking to,
[00:17:24.960]for maybe 20 minutes, the principal wrote me one time
[00:17:28.100]and said "That was a great talk,
[00:17:30.900]but I heard kids say, walking out say,
[00:17:33.860]now I know what I want to do."
[00:17:37.250]I've had those experiences, and I think that led me
[00:17:39.580]to want to be in education full-time.
[00:17:43.100]Being an engineer was great, it was a wonderful experience,
[00:17:46.470]but I get to do that even more so in this position.
[00:17:50.200]When you're not doing robotics and you're not at work,
[00:17:52.730]what is something that, what is it that excites you?
[00:17:55.600]What's your hobbies?
[00:17:56.433]What do you do outside of these walls?
[00:17:59.170]I have two children who are teenagers,
[00:18:02.150]and neither drive, so that takes up.
[00:18:04.860]My hobbies are going to all their events.
[00:18:07.240]But really, I enjoy performances.
[00:18:10.790]I love musicals, Broadway performances.
[00:18:14.600]I love dance.
[00:18:17.865]I grew up dancing, and I was a cheerleader,
[00:18:19.840]so I love all of that type of performance stuff
[00:18:21.960]and watching it, and I love traveling.
[00:18:24.430]I enjoy traveling with my family, my husband.
[00:18:26.890]We take the kids to, we've gone
[00:18:29.380]to a lot of the national parks.
[00:18:31.423]Growing up, I didn't travel a lot out of the southeast,
[00:18:34.570]where I was from, so we've gone to national parks
[00:18:36.960]and we tend to go, have several small trips during the year.
[00:18:41.070]I enjoy traveling with my family.
[00:18:43.703]Does your family have a list of places
[00:18:46.277]that's a goal that we want to go see?
[00:18:49.280]We asked a similar question to Lance Perez,
[00:18:51.610]the dean of the college.
[00:18:52.992]He mentioned that he loved to travel,
[00:18:54.840]and we asked him if there's a bucket list or a family list.
[00:18:58.459]Where have you not gone that you're looking forward
[00:19:01.810]to hitting with the family?
[00:19:03.520]Oh, well probably not with the family.
[00:19:06.741](laughter)
[00:19:08.910]Sorry kids.
[00:19:09.850]Yeah, sorry kids.
[00:19:11.137]We've pretty much been in the United States with the kids.
[00:19:15.400]We've been a couple places, but I would love
[00:19:19.890]to go to Africa, to Europe and see places
[00:19:22.705]that I have never been, like that type of overseas.
[00:19:26.343]Anywhere over there, there's so many places.
[00:19:30.370]Iceland, hearing things about that now.
[00:19:35.530]I mean it's so many places,
[00:19:36.913]the list is too long to name it all.
[00:19:40.920]The University of Nebraska College of Engineering,
[00:19:43.260]we are committed to growing diversity within engineering.
[00:19:46.750]You mentioned that on a couple of occasions here too
[00:19:48.690]is what can we be doing to continue to get kids
[00:19:52.720]from all different backgrounds?
[00:19:55.420]Girls, boys, everyone.
[00:19:56.930]How can we get more people interested and involved
[00:19:59.820]in becoming an engineer, and knowing
[00:20:01.230]that it's an option for them?
[00:20:03.000]I think, for the most part, it starts early
[00:20:06.360]because kids decide pretty early
[00:20:08.710]what they can or cannot do.
[00:20:13.110]Having people that speak into their lives.
[00:20:16.010]When we, we talk to the female engineers that we get,
[00:20:19.780]and it's a smaller percentage in electrical engineering,
[00:20:23.760]but when we talk to them we've had some,
[00:20:25.490]we have very strong students.
[00:20:27.493]And say "Well what motivated you to come?"
[00:20:32.260]Most of the time, a lot of the time
[00:20:34.720]it's been a parent who said you should be an engineer,
[00:20:39.210]you should look into this, or a teacher
[00:20:41.900]who spoke into their life and said that.
[00:20:46.046]By the time they come to our program,
[00:20:47.990]I think the biggest thing we can do
[00:20:50.560]is to create a welcoming environment
[00:20:53.216]and one that has people that look like the students
[00:20:57.210]that as staff and professors, that look like them
[00:21:01.130]because it always just makes people feel more comfortable.
[00:21:03.818]I think we're doing a good job at recruiting
[00:21:06.710]and trying to, you know, increase that.
[00:21:08.990]Just making them feel welcome, and Nebraska
[00:21:11.607]has a lot of positives, you know.
[00:21:14.087]There's a lot of, I grew up in the southeast,
[00:21:16.890]but there's a lot of similar values here,
[00:21:20.050]so just making people feel comfortable and understanding,
[00:21:23.020]and I think that the talents can come out and flourish
[00:21:27.839]and be nourished that way.
[00:21:29.801](bell dings)
[00:21:31.060]Alright, now our lightning round of questions
[00:21:33.160]here with Alissa.
[00:21:34.400]We'll begin with: dog or cat?
[00:21:36.552]Dog, absolutely.
[00:21:38.693]Whose your favorite superhero?
[00:21:41.080]Wonder Woman, of course.
[00:21:43.110]Favorite tailgating food?
[00:21:46.200]Barbecue chicken.
[00:21:47.860]Have you ever used a slide rule?
[00:21:50.280]No.
[00:21:51.640]First video game you owned?
[00:21:54.180]It was probably Atari Pacman.
[00:21:57.530]Favorite musical genre?
[00:21:58.980]Gospel.
[00:21:59.890]What was your favorite toy growing up?
[00:22:02.880]A little professor calculator.
[00:22:05.980]If you could time travel, to when would you go?
[00:22:09.300]Probably the 60s just to witness Dr. Martin Luther King
[00:22:14.960]and all the things that were going on at that time.
[00:22:17.453]On a scale of one to 10, how strict were your parents?
[00:22:20.120]I was a pretty good kid,
[00:22:21.590]so they didn't have to be super strict.
[00:22:23.660]Maybe like eight.
[00:22:25.890]How strict are you?
[00:22:29.254]Five.
[00:22:30.087](laughter)
[00:22:31.657]You know how to run a VCR?
[00:22:33.750]Yeah, my wedding video is on a VCR.
[00:22:37.160]Chocolate or vanilla?
[00:22:38.750]Vanilla.
[00:22:39.620]Saturday or Sunday?
[00:22:42.300]Sunday.
[00:22:43.730]What's your pet peeve?
[00:22:44.960]Having to address and write by hand
[00:22:48.090]my address over and over again.
[00:22:50.249]I hate that.
[00:22:53.329]Pancakes or waffles?
[00:22:54.670]Pancakes.
[00:22:55.860]Herby Husker or little red?
[00:22:57.740]Little red.
[00:22:59.679]Least favorite Thanksgiving food?
[00:23:04.890]They're all good.
[00:23:06.850]I don't have a least favorite.
[00:23:08.340]Well thank you very much again, Alissa, for joining us.
[00:23:12.040]All of you who are listening, make sure you head out
[00:23:13.920]to the Nebraska Robotics Expo on February 16th.
[00:23:17.180]It's at the SAC Museum near Ashland.
[00:23:19.350]It's just off the interstate, it runs eight to five that day
[00:23:22.440]and if you need any more information,
[00:23:24.520]go to the SAC Museum website.
[00:23:26.240]Anything you need should be there.
[00:23:27.720]Thank you very much, Alissa.
[00:23:28.950]You're welcome, it was my pleasure.
[00:23:30.482](cheerful piano music)
[00:23:33.490]Thank you for listening to the
[00:23:34.560]Complete Engineering podcast.
[00:23:36.400]For more information, visit us at engineering.unl.edu.
[00:23:40.631](cheerful piano music)

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Robotics and STEM Outreach: Meet Alisa Gilmore

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