Last week in Blackburn Center, Howard University welcomed middle school, high school, and college students to explore the rapidly expanding world of robotics over the course of its second Robotics and AI Outreach Event. Teams of high school students showcased robots they built, while representatives from partnering Amazon Fulfillment Technologies, FIRST Robotics, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army Research Laboratories, and Viriginia Tech gave presentations on their latest technologies, as well as ways to get involved in high-tech research. 

Across Thursday and Friday, Howard students and middle and high schoolers from across the DMV region heard from university researchers creating stories with generative AI and learned how they can get involved in STEM outreach from the Howard University Robotics Organization (HURO) and FIRST Robotics. They also viewed demonstrations of military unmanned ground vehicles and the Amazon Astro household robot. The biggest draw, however, was the robotics showcase in the East Ballroom. 

Over both days, middle and high school teams from across the DMV presented their robots as part of the FIRST Tech Challenge (FTC) and FIRST Robotics Competition, during which they were tasked with designing a robot within  six weeks. The program is intensive and gives students a taste of a real-world engineering career, as the students not only design and build their entries, but also engage in outreach events and raise their own funding each year.

“It’s incredible,” said Shelley Stoddard, vice president of FIRST Chesapeake. “I liken our teams to entrepreneurial startups. Each year they need to think about who they’re recruiting, how they’re recruiting; what they’re going to do for fundraising. If they want to have a brand, they create that, they manage that. We are highly encouraging of outreach because we don’t want it to be insular to just their schools or their classrooms.” 

Reaching the Next Generation of Engineers

This entrepreneurial spirit carries across the teams, such as the Ashburn, Virginia-based BeaverBots, who showed up in matching professional attire to stand out to potential recruits and investors as they presented three separate robots they’ve designed over the years — the Stubby V2, Dam Driver V1, and DemoBot — all built for lifting objects. Beyond already being skilled engineers and coders in their own right, the team has a heavy focus on getting younger children into robotics, even organizing their own events.

“One of the biggest things about our outreach is showing up to scrimmages and showing people we actually care about robotics and want to help kids join robotics,” said team member and high school junior Savni (last name withheld). “So, for example we’ve started a team in California, we’ve mentored [in] First Lego League, and we’ve hosted multiple scrimmages with FTC teams.”

“We also did a presentation in our local Troop 58 in Ashburn, where we showed our robot and told kids how they can get involved with FIRST,” added team vice-captain Aryan. “Along with that, a major part of our fundraising is sponsorship and matching grants.  We’ve received matching grants from CVS, FabWorks, and ICF.”

This desire to pay it forward and get more people involved in engineering wasn’t limited to the teams. Members of the student-run HURO were also present, putting on a drone demo and giving lectures advocating for more young Black intellectuals to get into science and engineering. 

“Right now, we’re doing a demo of one of our drones from the drone academy,” explained senior electrical engineering major David Toler II. “It’s a program we’ve put on since 2024 as a way to enrich the community around us and educate the Black community in STEM. We not only provide free drones to high schools, but we also work hands-on with them in very one-on-one mentor styles to give them knowledge to build on themselves and understand exactly how it works, why it works, and what components are necessary.” 

Building A Strong Support Network

HURO has been involved with the event from the beginning. Event organizer and Howard professor Harry Keeling, Ph.D., credits the drone program for helping the university’s AI and robotics outreach take flight. 

“It started with the drone academy, then that expanded through Dr. Todd Shurn’s work through the Sloan Foundation in the area of gaming,” explained Keeling. “Then gaming brought us to AI, and we got more money from Amazon and finally said ‘we need to do more outreach.’” 

Since 2024, Keeling has been working to bring more young people into engineering and AI research, relying on HURO, other local universities and high schools, industry partners like Amazon, and the Department of Defense, to build a strong network dedicated to local STEM outreach. Like with FIRST Robotics, a large part of his motivation with these growing partnerships is to prepare students for successful  jobs in the industry.

“We tell our students that in this field, networking is how you accomplish career growth,” he said. “None of us knows everything about what we do, but we can have a network where we can reach out to people who know more than we do. And the stronger our network is, the more we are able to solve problems in our own personal and professional lives.” 

At next year’s event, Keeling plans to step back and allow HURO to take over  more of the organizing and outreach, further bringing the next generation into leadership positions within the field. Meanwhile, he is working with other faculty members across the university to bring AI to the curriculum, further demystifying the technology and ensuring Howard students are prepared for the future. 

For Keeling, outreach events like this are vital to ensuring that young people feel confident in entering robotics, rather than intimidated. 

“One thing I realized is young people gravitate to what they see,” he said. “If they can’t see it, they can’t conceive it. These high schoolers[and] middle schoolers are getting a chance to rub elbows with a lot of professionals [and] understand what a roboticist ultimately might be doing in life.” 

He hopes that his work eventually makes children see a future in tech as just as possible as any other field they see on TV. 

“I was talking with my daughters, and I asked them at dinner ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’” Keeling said. “And my youngest one said astronauts, and an artist, and a cook. Now hopefully one day, one of those 275 students that were listening to my presentation will answer the question with ‘I want to be an AI expert. I want to be a roboticist.’ Because they’ve come here, they’ve seen and heard what they can do.”

Walt Disney Co., Universal Pictures and Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday sued a Chinese artificial intelligence firm called MiniMax for copyright infringement, alleging its AI service generates iconic characters including Darth Vader, the Minions and Wonder Woman without the studios’ permission.

“MiniMax’s bootlegging business model and defiance of U.S. copyright law are not only an attack on Plaintiffs and the hard-working creative community that brings the magic of movies to life, but are also a broader threat to the American motion picture industry,” the companies said in their complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

The entertainment companies requested that MiniMax be restrained from further infringement. They are seeking damages of up to $150,000 per infringed work, as well as attorney fees and costs.

This is the latest round of copyright lawsuits that major studios have brought against AI companies over intellectual property concerns. In June, Disney and Universal Pictures sued AI firm Midjourney for copyright infringement. Earlier this month, Warner Bros. Discovery also sued Midjourney.

Shanghai-based MiniMax has a service called Hailuo AI, which is marketed as a “Hollywood studio in your pocket” and used characters including the Joker and Groot in its ads without the studios’ permission, the studios’ lawsuit said. Users can type in a text prompt requesting “Star Wars’” iconic character Yoda or DC Comics’ Superman, and Hailuo AI can pull up high quality and downloadable images or video of the character, according to the document.

“MiniMax completely disregards U.S. copyright law and treats Plaintiffs’ valuable copyrighted characters like its own,” the lawsuit said. “MiniMax’s copyright infringement is willful and brazen.”

“Given the rapid advancement in technology in the AI video generation field … it is only a matter of time until Hailuo AI can generate unauthorized, infringing videos featuring Plaintiffs’ copyrighted characters that are substantially longer, and even eventually the same duration as a movie or television program,” the lawsuit said.

MiniMax did not immediately return a request for comment.

Hollywood is grappling with significant challenges, including the threat of AI, as companies consolidate and reduce their expenses as production costs rise. Many actors and writers, still recovering from strikes that took place in 2023, are scrambling to find jobs. Some believe the growth of AI has threatened their livelihoods as tech tools can replicate iconic characters with text prompts.

While some studios have sued AI companies, others are looking for ways to partner with them. For example, Lionsgate has partnered with AI startup Runway to help with behind the scenes processes such as storyboarding.

Yilong Zhou, a visiting undergraduate student from Tsinghua University, used CRISPR-GPT to successfully active genes in A375 melanoma cancer cells as part of his research into better understanding why cancer immunotherapy sometimes fails.

Zhou typed his question into CRISPR-GPT’s text box: “I plan to do a CRISPR activate in a culture of human lung cells, what method should I use?”

CRISPR-GPT responded like an experienced lab mate advising a new researcher. It drafted an experimental design and, at each step, explained its “thought” process, describing why the various steps were important.

“I could simply ask questions when I didn’t understand something, and it would explain or adjust the design to help me understand,” Zhou said. “Using CRISPR-GPT felt less like a tool and more like an ever-available lab partner.”

As an early-career scientist, Zhou had designed only a handful of CRISPR experiments prior to using CRISPR-GPT. In this experiment, it took him one attempt to get it right — a rarity for most scientists.

In the past, Zhou was constantly worrying about making mistakes and double-checking his designs.

Reducing error and increasing accessibility

CRISPR-GPT can toggle between three modes: beginner, expert and Q&A. The beginner mode functions as a tool and a teacher, providing an answer and explanation for each recommendation. Expert mode is more of an equal partner, working with advanced scientists to tackle complex problems without providing additional context. Any researcher can use the Q&A function to directly address specific questions.

It’s also useful for sharing knowledge and collaborating with other labs, Cong said. CRISPR-GPT provides a more detailed and holistic response than what’s generally gleaned from a scientific manuscript and responds to repetitive inquires in a snap.

CRISPR-GPT can also check researchers’ work and apply experimental frameworks to new diseases the researchers may not be thinking about.

“People in my lab have been finding this tool very helpful,” Cong said. “The decisions are ultimately made by human scientists, but it just makes that whole process — from experiment design to execution — super simple.”

Editing responsibly and future expansion

While the technology is promising for accelerating therapeutic research, there are still some safety concerns to address before pushing CRISPR-GPT more broadly.

Cong and his team have already incorporated safeguards to protect the AI tool from irresponsible uses. For instance, if the AI receives a request to assist with an unethical activity, such as editing a virus or human embryo, CRISPR-GPT will issue a warning to the user and respond with an error message, effectively halting the interaction. Cong also plans to bring the technology to government agencies, such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology, to ensure ethical use and sound biosecurity.

In the future, the tool may serve as a blueprint for training AI to execute specific biological tasks outside of gene editing. From developing new lines of stem cells as experimental models, to deciphering molecular pathways involved in heart diseases, Cong hopes to expand the technology to other disciplines building a range of AI agents to aid in genomic discovery. To that end, he and his team developed the Agent4Genomics website, where they host a range of related AI tools for scientists to use and explore.

Researchers at Google DeepMind, Princeton University and the University of California, Berkeley contributed to this study.

Funding for this research came from the National Institute of Health (grants 1R35HG011316 and 1R01GM1416), the Donald and Delia Baxter Foundation Faculty Scholar Award, the Weintz Family Foundation, and the National Science Foundation.