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"  Obama inspects a student-built robot from the FIRST Robotics 2009 competition.  Yesterday in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, just steps from the White House, a 6-foot-tall rectangular robot whirred to life. Neon balls shot from a compressed-air tube past the President. &amp;quot;Uh oh,&amp;quot; President Obama said, taking a step back. &amp;quot;What are they aiming at right now?&amp;quot;  The two Oakton High School students demonstrating the robot, which competed in the FIRST Robotics regional game in Virginia this year, explained to the President what the robot was built to do (shoot balls into another robot&amp;#039;s trailer to score points) and that they had just six weeks to build it from a kit of parts. &amp;quot;They just gave you a kit?&amp;quot; the President asked. &amp;quot;There&amp;#039;s room for improvement,&amp;quot; junior Steven Harris answered dryly. &amp;quot;This is all stuff you can get at Radio Shack,&amp;quot; President Obama observed.  It was a fitting finale to a press event organized to announce new initiatives in science and technology education.  As the President pointed out, American students have scored dismally in science and math in recent decades--somewhere in the middle of the pack among their global peers--but many of the health, energy, security and economic problems in the U.S. today are rooted in these fields. &amp;quot;The key to meeting these challenges,&amp;quot; President Obama said, &amp;quot;is reaffirming and strengthening America&amp;#039;s role as the world&amp;#039;s engine of science and discovery and technological invention. The leadership of tomorrow depends on how we educate our students today.&amp;quot; Joining him in the room, along with the FIRST students and some lucky select mathletes, was a veritable who&amp;#039;s who of scientific role models--first American woman in space, Sally Ride; NASA administrator Charlie Bolden; Nobel winner and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu--as well as some of PM&amp;#039;s favorite geeks, Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage of the MythBusters (President Obama: &amp;quot;I hope they have left the explosives at home.&amp;quot;) and 2009 Breakthrough Award winner Dean Kamen. &amp;quot;The success we seek is not going to be attained by government alone,&amp;quot; the president said, and so all of the guests were being pressed into the civic duty of hands-on education.  &amp;quot;We didn&amp;#039;t set out to be science educators,&amp;quot; Adam tells me. &amp;quot;By happenstance it turns out to be that.&amp;quot; As exemplars of the mission to &amp;quot;be curious about examining the world around you, taking your own measure of it rather than somebody else&amp;#039;s,&amp;quot; Adam says, the MythBusters will be core content for the two hours of commercial-free science-themed programming that Discovery Communications pledged to offer after school.  Time Warner and the Coalition for Science After School, meanwhile, teamed up with Dean Kamen to connect 1 million students with after-school activities like FIRST Robotics. I asked Dean if that meant he would be one step closer to realizing his dream of ESPN-like coverage of engineering competitions. While they&amp;#039;re still hammering out the details, in a word: &amp;quot;Yes.&amp;quot; Not to be outdone by his celebrity guests, President Obama announced that the recovery act includes the largest investment in education in history, preserving the jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers from state budget shortfalls and providing financial incentives for states to introduce innovative math and science programs. He also introduced a National Lab Day, during which students would &amp;quot;launch rockets, construct miniature windmills and get their hands dirty,&amp;quot; and an annual science fair at the White House that will showcase the winners of national competitions.  &amp;quot;If you win the NAACP you get to come to the White House. Well, if you&amp;#039;re a young person who&amp;#039;s produced the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too,&amp;quot; the president said. &amp;quot;Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side with athletes and entertainers as role models. Here at the White House we&amp;#039;re going to lead by example. We&amp;#039;re going to show young people how cool science can be.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a4954/4337832/>