Want to deploy more robots in the USA? Here is the plan...

Reading twitter over this past weekend and I see a chart showing that China installed almost 10X more robots than the USA did in 2022.

Troubling, for sure.

What to do?

Complain, ignore it, get xenophobic, roll out protectionist policies, stock the bunker with bags of dried beans, ammo, and antibiotics?

Instead of panic, how about we look to the past for an idea on how to improve the future?

In 1933, during the depths of the great depression, FDR organized the Civilian Conservation Corps. The CCC mobilzed young men into the effort to transform a country in trouble.

If you're not familiar with the CCC progam, let's take this quick summary from ChatGPT to get us up to speed.

"The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a public work relief program that operated in the United States from 1933 to 1942 as part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. Aimed at combating unemployment during the Great Depression, the CCC provided jobs for young, unmarried men to work on projects related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural lands owned by federal, state, and local governments.

The program was notable for its dual mission: to provide employment and vocational training for young men, and to preserve the nation's natural resources. Participants, known as "CCC boys" or "enrollees," were involved in a variety of activities, including planting trees to combat soil erosion and maintain forests, building trails, roads, and parks, and fighting forest fires.

The CCC was immensely popular and considered a successful part of the New Deal, providing jobs for over 3 million men and making significant contributions to the preservation and development of the nation's natural landscape. It also helped to lay the groundwork for modern conservation programs and played a key role in developing the infrastructure of many state and national parks. The CCC ended in 1942 as the U.S. entered World War II and the economy shifted towards war production, reducing unemployment."

Looking back, we see unmarried men were the focus. Time change. Let's focus on all youth today. I read much about how our present generation has a lot of anxiety and despair about the current state of the economy, world politics, and a general fear of their future being pretty crappy.

So how about we do something as a society to change that?

Take the FDR / CCC playbook and apply it to robotics.

What did the CCC do?

The Civilian Conservation Corps program had two goals;

1) Put a large contingent of idle young men to work

2) Conserve natural lands and develop resources for the public good

Reform these two goals for the USA in 2024...

1) Provide meaningful employment prospects for all youth in our society

2) Upgrade the manufactuing base of the USA to ensure that democracy is underpinend by a sound economy

Let's create a moden day equivalent of the Civilian Conservation Corps...

Launch the Civilian Robotics Corps.

Sounds lofty and idealistic? Good. Big ideas are what this country was built upon.

Now for the details about who, what, when, where, and why.

A) Who...

Anyone over the age of 14 years old in the USA. Youth today are so smart and adaptive. Being born into world where they are digitialy native allows for them to rapidly assimilate technology and find uses that previous generations couldn't dream of.

B) What...

The Civilian Robotics Corps (CRC) should be a public private partnership laser focused on deploying robots into small, local businesses.

Use CRC funds to train youth to help local industries deploy robots. Use CRC funds as grants to small business deploying robots for efficiency, safety, and capacity projects.

Utilize community colleges, trade schools, and high schools as project organizations. Faculty and local technology business owners partner to deploy robots. (Think about hundreds / thousands of local "FIRST Robotics Competitions" aimed at your local machine shop, fast food restaurant, or injection molding shop)

C) When...

Internships, co-ops, high school vocational programs, STEM programs, modern vocational classes. Put an emphasis on getting young people exposed to the working world and the tools they'll be using. 12 years of primary school is fine, but why not have the last 4 years (14 yrs old +) be half in the academic arena and half in the world of work. Youth rise to our expectations. Put them out in the world to learn and grow by foucsing them on real world installations / applications of technology.

D) Where...

Local, local, local. Community based programs. This country is built on thousands of small communities. (Every big city is made up of small communites)

Drive the CRC at the local level. When you daughter or son is working on a project through their high school and doing it for a neighbors business, you can bet that connections will be made and community engagement will thrive.

What to drive change in the "us vs. them" problem, or decrease the recent tendency to see people you don't know as "others"? Put youth out in the community and hold them accountable for solving problems.

E) Why...

The youth of today are imeressed in a whirlwind of negativity, always on news and social media. We've created a doom loop. Let's break the doom loop with a positive message. "Go build, go learn, go create"

Demonstrate the message of "Be the change you wish to see in the world"

Many young people don't have the chance to "build" anything tangible or real in their primary educational environment. Building drives discovery, sense of purpose, problem solving, and sense of team.

If you want to get back to being a nation of builders, you've got to invest in our youth.

Now for the most important part...

HOW?

So by now we are all fired up about the idea. So what will it take?

Let's go to a quote by James Clear...

“If you’re not working hard, ideas don’t matter. The best idea is worthless without execution.

So what's the excution on the Civilian Robotics Corps?

1) Start with Top down. This has to be driven by big gov (sigh...) Create the CRC Program. Name a Robotics Czar. Make it a national priority / platform.

2) Give it a Budget. Carve out a chunk of Department of Education Budget. The Dept of Ed budget is ~ $83 Billion. 10% of that every year is a great seed fund.

Dept of Ed is supposed to focus on our future. Well folks our future requires us to build things. Build them here on USA soil, with USA citizens, for USA communities.

3) Incentivize it. Utilize the money at the local level, local teams allocate resources to local business (Students from the corp, robots, tooling costs, install costs) Money into local communities, with local people, for local results. Make participation the new GI Bill. But pay it forward instead of awarding funds after participation. Want to be a robotics tech? we pay for it, want to learn to program? here is you free classes.

4) Measure it. Public metrics on allocation of funds, speed of installation, safety, success rates, ROI. Just because it's gov money (our tax dollars) doesn't mean we can't measure it and hold those spending it to task.

5) Share it. Build in public. Share lessons, share best practices, make it open source. Look at what been built open source, Linux, ROS, Wikipedia. Use the program to drive community. Lord knows this country needs to get back to a sense of community.

6) Celebrate success. Successful execution gets publicized, productive CRC team members get recognized. We award our warrios with medals and commendations for defending our country. Let's build a culture of honoring and awarding builders. Some aren't built / able to fight, but it doesn't mean building a better country is any less important or worthy.

Final Thoughts.

Hopefully this isn't just shouting into the wind.

I'm a builder and I'm an optimist, and I'd like to think I'm a patriot.

What's more patriotic then criticizing your country, and then saying this is how we do it better.

I've been building things my whole life. I think I've carved out a good life, impacted many around me in a postive sense, and I've seen how you can just manifest things if you believe and are willing to act.

Let's act folks.

Let's give the exsiting generation of yound people something to build.

Let's give them a meaningful purpose to rally around.

Build, Build, Build.

Build up our youth.

Build up our country.

Build up our communites.

If you want to see the Twitter / X post that birthed this....

https://x.com/RussellDA3D/status/1777359616369967458