The “Star Wars” universe is nothing without its lovable droids. In the sci-fi epic, droids are as common as people; they are everywhere in the galaxy. They’re not just for work but also act as a companion for everybody; making them necessary for the future of the galaxy. So in this week’s episode of “Science and Star Wars,” the show weighs in on the droids living among us. Will we ever come close to the technology of the franchise? How close are we in making this a reality?
Here are the highlights from this week’s episode.
Helper Droids
This week’s “Science and Star Wars” episode is titled “Helper Droids.” As the name implies, the show featured the droids we currently use in society.
The host of the show Anthony Carboni and IBM’s supercomputer Watson started the show by discussing the droids in the “Star Wars” series.
Watson and Carboni explained how helpful the movie’s droids are. They help people across the galaxy do their work from welding tools to piloting X-wings and Starfighters; they have been a necessary part of the universe.
After discussing the movie’s robots, the hosts compared them with the droids of the real world. Just like in the sci-fi drama, we too have helpful mechanical companions. We can see them moving in airports, hospitals, and even in our homes. They aren’t as sophisticated BB-8 or R2-D2, but they do make our lives much easier.
If we’re going to compare real-life droids to the fictional ones; it’s obvious that we still don’t have a chance.
After all, in order to make high-tech droid, we’ll need materials like an interface pulse stabilizers, logic function display, holoprojector, rocket thrusters and other materials that our current technology doesn’t have.
We still need more time if we want to reach the “Star Wars” standards.
Scientist are trying their best
Despite our lack of holoprojectors and other materials, scientists haven’t stopped making our droid dreams come true.
In NASA, we already have Robonaut-- a mechanical creature that can mimic human actions. The University of California already has a transport robot that allows people who work in the hospital to focus on their patient rather than carrying objects. Lastly, we have Olli—a type smart vehicle that uses IBM’s Watson to communicate with other drivers. Our world is slowly making smart droids that’ll help us in the future.
Based on the show, it would still take a lot of time for us to catch up to “Star Wars” in terms of technology