Episode 4 My Genius Idea

Hello and welcome to another My Genius Idea, the series

that's looking for the biggest,

best and brightest ideas from all of you.

In My Genius Idea, we are looking

for the next generation of inventors.

We received ideas from all over the UK.

The Genius Ideas ranged from how to look after your pets,

robots to help around the home,

through to flying cars and eco-powered planes.

Only 18 ideas made it to the heats

and they'll now go head to head to see

who'll be crowned the overall winner.

Our budding inventors will work with experts

to help their inventions come to life.

And they will go behind the scenes of some of the UK's most successful

organisations to give them the inspiration needed to progress

their inventions further.

I used this to inspire what I did.

Deciding if they can progress in the competition will be down to

expert inventor and judge, Tom Lawton.

Tom has always had a passion for inventing.

I love it. There are so many ideas

all around us and under everybody's nose there's a solution

that needs to be solved or a problem

that hasn't been addressed yet.

Tom started inventing when he was ten and by the time he was 21,

he developed his first product,

the world's first recordable alarm clock.

You always have ideas and being an inventor is

about actually seeing those ideas through to something that's real.

He's gone on to build a successful career as an inventor,

winning international awards for his work.

It's great doing a programme about young inventors

because young inventors have a very fresh perception of the world

and so I hope to be inspired by some of these young minds.

Hoping to impress Tom with their ideas are...

And here they are now, our three young inventors.

Welcome to the My Genius Idea nerve centre. How are you all feeling?

-Fine.

-Oh, good. You seem quite up for it.

Karampreet, I'll come to you first. What's your Genius Idea?

Well, the sun holds a lot of untapped energy and

I've got satellites with solar panels on them orbiting the sun

and they will be collecting a lot of energy

which they can then send back to the Earth.

So, Karampreet's idea is to take untapped energy from the sun

and beam it back down to Earth by using solar panels.

Just like his jujitsu, it's all about minimum force

to create maximum energy.

You get space probes orbiting the Earth

and some of them study the sun.

I had this idea of using solar panels

which could orbit the sun to get

a lot more benefits out of it.

So, it's quite an environmentally friendly project.

It's really environmentally friendly.

Brilliant. I'm impressed, Karampreet.

-OK, I'm going to move onto Shannon.

-Hello.

-What's the big idea?

-A bed making machine.

A bed making machine? What's the inspiration behind it?

I don't really like making my bed so I thought that

if we had a machine to help us make our beds,

it would just change the future.

So, Shannon's idea is to build a machine with mechanical arms

to make your bed in the mornings,

but will music loving Shannon's invention hit the right notes...

SHE PLAYS THE TRUMPET

..and help her in the competition?

I think it's the best idea because it will help save time in the morning.

I think that's a brilliant idea.

OK, Caitlin, we're coming on to you. What's your idea?

It's a tree simulator.

-Tell us more about it?

-Well, what it does is it takes in the carbon

in the air and using chlorophyll it cleans it and turns it into oxygen.

Caitlin's idea is a tree simulator which will take in harmful

carbon dioxide gases and turn them into oxygen to make cleaner air.

Her idea would work just like the trees that are all around.

They will be put in built up areas to reduce air pollution,

but will she gallop on to win the competition?

It's helping the environment

and it's for a good cause

and not something, like, just to help entertainment.

In the My Genius Idea HQ,

Karampreet, Shannon and Caitlin will each have

one hour to develop their idea with a top expert.

Karampreet is wasting no time with his expert,

Dr Douglas Halliday, a physicist.

My idea was that solar panels

are probably going to be the future of our energy.

If you used a microwave beam,

you'd lose a very small amount of the energy

and it would also be wireless.

Then it could be picked up by a receiver

to power our homes and offices.

Karampreet's idea is to put solar panels near the sun

to capture energy and beam it back down to Earth to power our homes.

I was wondering, how close could we get these satellites

and solar panels to the sun?

The best solution would be to have the satellites much closer

to the Earth so it's easier for you to send the energy

from the solar panels down to the Earth.

It's probably worth thinking about how close we can have them to

the Earth rather than how far away we need to send them to the sun.

So, do you have any idea...?

After finding out his solar panels would work better positioned

closer to the Earth not the sun, Karampreet has a lot to think about

if he's got any chance of staying in this competition.

Shannon is helped with her bed making machine idea

by Kevin Amos, a robotics engineer.

So, here we have a bed just like your bedroom.

Can you show me how it looks when you've got up in the morning?

So, you throw the duvet back.

Describe the machine you had in mind.

-There's two robotic arms that come out.

-One on each side.

Yes, one on each side. You put your pillow down.

Show me what the robot arms are actually doing.

It puts your pillow

where it was

and then it brings the blanket up and then just smoothes it out.

We've got a machine here with us today

-and we are going to try and do just that.

-Cool.

Cool. Yeah, it will be.

Shannon's invention is for a machine that has moving mechanical arms

to help you make your bed and it's a good start.

But how is Caitlin getting on? She's discovering the science

behind her tree simulator

from Valerie Ludbrook, a biologist.

So, your idea is a tree simulator.

Can you tell me a little bit more about it?

We're going to have this machine

and it is going to suck in the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

and using chlorophyll, turn it into oxygen.

OK, so that's exactly how a tree works.

Caitlin's idea is to try to find a way to take the harmful

carbon dioxide out of the air and then recycle it

to make the oxygen we need for cleaner air.

Can you think of any challenges with your invention?

I think the main challenge is, if you can't extract

the chlorophyll from the leaves, then it won't be able to work.

Caitlin knows her invention will only succeed

if she can extract chlorophyll.

It's a huge challenge to overcome if she's to stay in the competition.

The key to Karampreet's invention

is deciding how to send energy from the sun back to Earth.

He has an idea of how this could be done.

I wanted to use a microwave beam, simply because that could get

through the atmosphere without much of the energy being blocked out.

So, I was going to ask you, could you use multiple

different beams which are less intense,

but because there's more of them, get the same amount of energy?

I think we would have to use either lots of small beams

or a very large beam. One of the technical challenges

in implementing your idea

will be to construct a transmitter and receiver

that can send the beam back to Earth which is probably not this size,

or even this size but maybe many meters across.

Karampreet's begun to see how big the dish needs to be

to receive the energy beam down.

He'll have to convince Tom later that he can make this a reality.

Shannon's ironing out some problems with her idea.

So, what I've done there, Shannon,

I have taught a series of movements by moving the robot and saving it.

Now, hopefully, when we press this green button here, the robot's going

to go through those movements and put our pillow down here.

So, after programming a few simple moves,

the robot begins to make the bed.

It's going to grab the pillow. That's it. Keep your finger on it.

Would your mum mind a robot in your bedroom like that?

-Yeah, she would mind.

-The problem for us is,

our robot can't see.

So, you put the pillow down the end but the robot doesn't know

that the pillow's moved because it's just literally running a sequence.

What would the robot need for it to see where the pillow is?

Basically, it would need some form of camera and

then the camera actually links to the robot and it can then see.

So, just like we see really and it can actually search for something.

Could you get a camera on this type of robot?

You can and in fact, we've actually got a camera mounted on it anyway,

but it's not at the moment linked to controlling the robot.

Shannon needs to focus on

how a camera could be used so her invention

will see on its own and teach itself how to make the bed.

If it works, it could just give her the edge in the competition.

Caitlin is developing her tree simulator idea.

To make this work, she'll need to explore

-what leaves on trees do every day, a process called photosynthesis.

What do you know about photosynthesis?

The carbon dioxide is taken into the leaves and the chlorophyll

turns the carbon dioxide into oxygen.

What the plant actually does is,

it uses the energy from the sunlight

to split water in two and the oxygen is a waste product of that.

You were exactly right in your idea in the invention.

You were explaining earlier which part of the plant

we need in order for this reaction to happen. What was that again?

-Chlorophyll.

-Chlorophyll, exactly.

We need chlorophyll. That's fundamental to your invention.

Do you know where the chlorophyll is?

-In the leaves.

-It's in the leaves, exactly.

So, if we take a look at one

of these leaves here, it's very green,

so that's packed full of chlorophyll.

Caitlin realises that chlorophyll is vital for her idea. She knows

the success of her invention relies on extracting it from leaves,

so it's all or nothing as she fights for a place in the next round.

With only 20 minutes left, I'm off to see how their ideas

are coming along. First up is Karampreet.

What's the plan?

Well, we've basically been looking at how feasible these solar panels

in space are and we've been looking at how some of the technologies

which we'd need to use are already being used on a smaller scale.

Dr Douglas, can you make this kind of advancements? Is it possible?

The challenge is taking something like this small panel here and

scaling it up to making it hundreds or even thousands of times larger.

You're going to change the world,

so I'll let you get on with changing it.

Thank you.

Next up it's Shannon. How is she getting on mastering

the mechanics of her robot? Kevin, Shannon, how's it going so far?

There is one little problem because if the pillow's down here,

the robot can't see it without eyes like us.

It needs eyes to see where it's going.

Well, it needs a camera to see where it's going.

But do you have to control it physically to move it?

No, it thinks for itself but

we would actually have to have something on the pillow that made

the robot identify it.

Have you come up with any solutions for that?

-That's the next bit.

-I'm going to leave you

to discuss that because it looks like you've made some great headway.

Caitlin needs to manufacture photosynthesis.

To do this, she needs to find a way of locking in water

so that the carbon dioxide can get in

but the oxygen can still get out.

Caitlin, what's this?

It's an egg and it's been soaked in vinegar for three days.

Can I just say that that feels just like a sponge?

It doesn't feel real! That's amazing. But what I want to know is,

how does it actually apply to your idea, Caitlin?

For photosynthesis, you need keep the water for it.

So what it will do is,

a semi permeable membrane will keep the water in

but it will let the carbon dioxide in and the oxygen out,

to keep the water inside.

Wow, really fascinating stuff.

So, what does expert inventor and judge Tom make of the ideas so far?

Tom, some really ambitious ideas we've seen here today.

You are going to look at them

a little bit later on, but what are your initial reactions?

Some of their imaginations

are really underpinned by some quite sound thinking.

I judge adult invention contests from time to time and I don't think

you would have had ideas of this quality from them.

They are really seeing the big picture

and trying to solve fundamental problems. All credit to these guys.

Listen, go and have another look and I'll speak to you later.

Tom will be judging all their ideas later on. He'll want to know

how well Karampreet, Shannon and Caitlin

have understood the technology

behind their inventions and how well they can sell them to him.

Only one of today's inventors can win a place in the next round.

This looks interesting. You are experimenting

-with frequencies of light.

-That's right.

-It would be a waste product.

So, this is for the final touches of puffing your pillow?

-Yeah.

-Very good.

-Now, the UK leads the way

in loads of cutting edge technology and even space exploration.

We thought it would be good idea to send this lot off on a mission

to see how great ideas made down here on Earth

can work up there in space.

The Space Research Centre at Leicester University

is at the forefront of space exploration.

Their latest project is to search for life on Mars.

Our young inventors have come to see the dedication, hard work

and, most of all, patience it takes to launch a mission into space.

It's really exciting to be at a proper space research centre

because they actually make things that are sent to space.

It would be great if I learnt something today

which would help me with my invention.

Dr Ian Hutchinson is one of the people behind the mission.

It's great if they take away the message that in order to be

a successful scientist, they should never give up when things go wrong

and always take away the positives and work towards the next project.

He shows the young inventors just how a robot is built

to tackle a mission on Mars.

Here you can see the solar panels which will collect energy

from the sun and enable the batteries to be charged

so that the rover's motors can move it about the surface

and the instruments can analyse the sample

that is extracted from the drill.

At the top, you see Bridget's eyes and that enables her to analyse

the terrain that's around her so that she can move safely

between the various hazards that are on the surface of the planet.

I think because of looking at Bridget and how she's made,

I'm going to try and think about

how the arms are going to come off the bed.

After finding out more about the robot,

our young inventors are full of questions.

-Do you think there's life on Mars?

-I certainly hope so.

With the drill on the rover, that's able to go deep below the surface,

there's a much better chance of finding examples of life

that we will be able to prove using the instrumentation.

Even if it looks gold, is it real gold on there?

Yes, surprisingly, what you see there is real gold.

Why is it real gold on it?

Real gold is a very good thermal conductor,

which is what's important for the thermal stability of the instruments.

How long will it be on the surface of Mars for?

It will operate for at least six months.

There's a planned programme, a different sample test it needs to do,

but with some luck, it might be able to last longer than six months.

To show our budding inventors that there is

no room for mistakes on Mars, they've been given a simple task.

They have to navigate their own robot over Mars-like terrain.

It will be easy for these to get over the rocks

because they are much larger than rocks.

Bridget had very large wheels compared to the rocks.

-What do you think Shannon?

-I think that one.

-This one?

I think that's a good choice.

Can they complete their mission?

It's a promising start,

but it's not long before the Martian landscape

-begins to challenge the rover.

-THEY GROAN

-It's fallen over.

-Is this game over now?

I'm afraid so. You can see just how difficult it is

and there's nobody there on the surface of Mars

to pick your rover up for you if it falls over.

I would love to go to Mars because

there'd be loads of stuff to discover.

'It's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.'

What I've taken from this is that you really do have to keep trying,

have patience and not rush what you do.

You really do need to perfect it so it works to the best of its ability.

We are back in the My Genius Idea HQ

and it's the last ten minutes of their development session.

Now Karampreet, Shannon and Caitlin will see if their ideas

can actually work. The pressure is on.

Karampreet and Douglas are doing some final calculations.

So, what we have here is a small solar panel,

a lamp to simulate full sunlight.

They need all this equipment to see how big

a solar panel orbiting the Earth needs to be to power a single house.

The total area of your solar cell would be four square meters.

That would produce enough energy to power a house in the United Kingdom.

So, do you think that's possible?

I think that is feasible. It's actually a lot smaller

than I thought it would be.

That shows the potential of sustainable energy.

So, Karampreet is happy with the results,

but will they be enough to secure him a place in the next round?

Meanwhile, Shannon is beginning to see

how a camera on her bed making machine

could bring her idea to life.

Now it's going down. You can see the gripper,

so, its going to come up.

Now the arm has got the camera, could I make the bed making machine?

The actual principle of using a robot programmed in this way, with a camera

to find things, providing we had something on the sheet and the duvet

that it could recognise,

it is very possible to make a bed making machine.

To make Caitlin's idea work, they are using a centrifuge,

which spins round really quickly like a washing machine.

It will try to separate out the green chlorophyll.

If she's successful, it could make her tree simulator work.

That's spun for five minutes.

-What do you see?

-All of the light stuff,

like the protein and the chlorophyll has gone to the top

and all of the heavy debris stuff has gone to the bottom.

But how will we know if the chlorophyll is still in the solution?

-Because the solution will be green.

-Exactly.

With time up, Karampreet has been able to work out

how big his solar panels need to be.

Shannon has made her bed making machine work

with a camera and Caitlin has been able to

isolate chlorophyll to help make oxygen for her tree simulator.

But who will impress Tom the most to win a place in the next stage

of the competition?

All three genius inventors now have to present their ideas to Tom

and it's Shannon to go first.

Tom is waiting for you in the presentation den,

so if you'd like to go.

So, can Shannon explain her bed making machine

well enough to convince Tom to pick her?

Hi, Shannon. Well, I'm looking forward to learning

-about your bed making machine. Can you explain the idea to me?

-Yeah.

You press this button right here and then the arms come out

with the bed there. Then it pulls up your cover

and then it just looks like that, perfectly made.

So, as if by magic, the robot makes the bed for you every morning.

Who else might benefit from this idea, do you think?

Well, I think disabled people would use it a bit more

because they might not be able to walk and be in a wheelchair

and it will be really easier for them.

OK. So people who perhaps need care or nursing or, as you say,

disabled people as well could find it useful themselves.

What would happen if... Imagine you were having a restless night

and your arms were swinging around a little bit

and you accidentally pressed the button at night.

Can you imagine what might happen?

-If you do, it'll grab your legs.

-Oh, right.

OK, so it might make you as part of the bed as well? OK.

Did you learn anything from the expert that you spent time with?

I learned how, on a mechanical arm,

you can have a camera on the end and then it can see where it's going.

So, it could work for different sized beds,

different pillow arrangements and that kind of thing.

-Yeah.

-Well, listen, I think you've done a really good presentation

and I think its an interesting idea.

Thank you very much for presenting to me.

You're welcome.

With her presentation over, all Shannon can do is wait

until the others have pitched and for Tom to make his decision.

Second up to see Tom is Caitlin.

Has she understood the technology that could make

her tree simulator work well enough to win a place in the semifinals?

Hi, Caitlin, can you explain the idea to me?

Well, what the tree simulator does is it uses chlorophyll to turn

carbon dioxide into oxygen, and it's going be used

for areas where there aren't many trees.

Can you talk me through the diagram you've got there and explain

to me more about the technology?

The carbon dioxide in the air will go in here,

and the concentrated chlorophyll will create a process

called photosynthesis.

This will then turn the carbon dioxide

into oxygen, which will then go out.

Where would you see this actually being installed?

Places like maybe cramped cities.

Places where they maybe wouldn't be many trees,

because all of the space has been taken up by houses.

Is there anything else you would like to tell me about the idea?

Well, we used the solar panels

to give it some power so that it can work, and it will help

all life on the Earth, because the cleaner...air

with the oxygen will improve the air quality.

Well, listen, you've done a really good presentation

-and thank you very much.

-Thank you.

'Just like got into talking about your idea, and it became quite fun.'

Tom's not looking for a finished idea today. He's looking to see

which one has the most potential to cut it in the real world.

He'll be judging them on how well they've understood the technology

and how well they can explain their idea to him.

-Can you explain your idea to me?

-I think solar cells are going

to play a major role in the future supply of energy for mankind.

-I have no doubt.

-And I was thinking about how we could get more energy

from our solar cells.

I realised that if we put large solar panels

onto a satellite around the Earth,

we'd get 14 times more sunlight on them per square metre than the UK.

And you could transmit this back to Earth via a microwave beam,

-which could be collected by a large receiver dish.

-OK.

Over here, you can see the sun

and the huge amount of solar energy it emits. You can see

over here the satellite orbiting the Earth and how the solar panels

are extremely large, compared to the central body of the satellite,

and then the microwave beams,

which transmit the energy back to the Earth.

Why is it necessary to go to space for it? Why can't we just optimise

what we are producing on the surface of the Earth?

Because the atmosphere absorbs a lot of the energy that we get

-from the sun, and also cloudy weather is a major issue.

-Yes, OK.

Now, you spent some time with an expert. What did you learn from them?

I learnt that you can still get a lot of energy just by orbiting

the Earth, because my original idea was to have it orbiting the sun

-in close proximity...

-Yeah.

..but it wasn't really feasible with today's technology.

-OK. Because it's so far away?

-It's just too far away.

You're obviously passionate about the idea.

-Fabulous presentation. Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

'It went differently from how I planned it in the notes,

'in that I presented it differently, but it still went just as well.

'I got everything across I needed to.'

So, for two budding inventors, the competition will be over shortly,

but who has won a place in the next round?

Will it be Shannon with her bed-making machine?

Caitlin with her tree simulator?

Or Karampreet with his idea of solar space panels?

Three very different ideas this time and they solve

very different problems as well.

Yeah, for sure, but they reproduced great presentations

and everybody had taken on board

what their experts had said to them.

So, it's been a difficult decision.

It might have been difficult, Tom, but have you come to a decision?

-Definitely come to a decision.

-Brilliant. Well, if you'd like

to take a seat, it's time to get the young inventors in.

It's crunch time. They've all spent time developing their ideas

and have pitched them to Tom,

but who has won that place in the semifinals?

Karampreet, Shannon, Caitlin, are you ready to hear Tom's decision?

-ALL:

-Yes.

Tom. They're ready, are you?

Yeah, I am. ..Hi, guys. It's not been an easy decision to make, this one.

Shannon, you've got a fun idea, and I'm sure that many people would

love it, but I do wonder whether the world really needs this invention.

Caitlin, you've had an imaginative and wonderful idea,

and it's a really intelligent solution to a real problem we face.

But I do wonder whether,

because trees need to do more than photosynthesis...perhaps

it's a case of us having to change our cities to accommodate real trees.

Karampreet, you've got a brilliant and original idea,

but I'm still concerned

about the concentration of microwaves being beamed back to Earth.

I have made my decision, and the inventor I'm going to send forward

to the semifinals is...

..Karampreet.

So, Karampreet wins with his idea

of solar space panels to send energy from the sun

back to Earth and he's still in with a chance of winning My Genius Idea.

Congratulations! How are you feeling?

Couldn't be better, cos these two are absolutely amazing,

they've got brilliant ideas.

'That's our fourth Genius Idea going through to the semifinals.'

Next time, we'll look for another one to joint Karampreet

in the semifinals.

Join us next time as we try to find another Genius Idea.

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