Jamie Beaton: 0:00

Welcome to Top of the Class, our podcast in which we take a deep dive into the minds of some of the world's highest achieving young people to figure out what makes them tick. And they're part of success in some of the world's most exciting competitions. I'm your host, Jamie Beaton, and today I'm honored to be here with Jia Dua. Now Jia has got a long list of achievements Robertson scholar, Princeton admit, she was involved in launching one of the first global online high schools in the world. But today, what's most exciting is she's actually the three times VEX Robotics World Champion. So we're very excited to learn more about that. Welcome to the show, Jia.

Jia Dua: 0:50

Hey, thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Jamie Beaton: 0:54

Fantastic. So why don't you take us, I guess, right back to the beginning. And you know, winders, back to high school. So how did you first get involved in VEX Robotics? What is it and kind of how did you find out about this robotics competition?

Jia Dua: 1:08

So I just walked into it completely blind. I think we had like something on the news thing, like, you know, there's a robotics club, come join, come hang out. And I was expecting something, you know, way more sophisticated than what I walked into. It was literally three boys in a garage after school. So I really didn't know what VEX was, when I started, I was just keen to learn. But for those of you who aren't familiar, VEX is, I think officially the world's largest student robotics competition. And it caters to kids who are all the way like in elementary school, but also up to high school and university level. And basically how it runs is every year, they put out like a game based engineering challenge. So it's hard to describe, because they'll have like these weird objects and these weird objectives. But what you have to do is you have to design, build, and then program and drive a robot to compete in it. So I kind of just walked in, I was like, I don't even know what robotics is, I don't even know how to like, build the first thing. But that's what I turned out to learn. So yeah, very, very random beginning of the journey.

Jamie Beaton: 2:13

That was them. And I think what's particularly, I guess, rare about this from New Zealand is we don't really have a big history if a lot of students getting involved in robotics. So I haven't come across many students that at your age in school kind of explored this path. So it wasn't something that was like, I guess, prominent within your school community, or what were you guys, one of the first year groups to really explore victory or school?

Jia Dua: 2:37

Yeah, that's actually a really good point, I think I got quite lucky cuz, um, well, first of all, we have to be honest fixes kind of an expensive competition to be involved in, which is part of the reason like it's not always prominent in every place. And I went to a public school, so you wouldn't really imagine it to be the type of place where they are cranking that. But two of the boys I did it with the dad was a mechanical engineer. So he just happened to have like a whole bunch of tools at home. He had like drills, he had saws, all sorts of stuff. So it kind of made our job a little easier is like a springboard and New Zealand is like, it's just one of those weird countries where it seems to have quite a strong community for this specific competition. So there's like an organization called Kiwi bots, and they run lots of competitions, they mentor a lot of kids. So that's how I got involved in that there. There are actually quite a lot of people and quite a lot of resources in that regard. In America, it's huge. Other parts of the world, it depends, but in most big cities, yet, you'll find lots of teams and lots of schools get involved in it.

Jamie Beaton: 3:39

And so when you think about robotics, I imagined someone you know, coding this complicated robot thinking about physics, and these, you know, funky math equations to get started in VEX, what level of kind of content do you need to know as a high schooler? What the barrier to entry for this?

Jia Dua: 3:55

It's definitely like harder than like. So one thing people always ask me is, how do I get started. And honestly, it's tricky, because there's so many things you can get involved in. But that's why it's fun. As a team team bass sport, you could call it if you want to call it a sport, I like to call it a sport. So there's the programming element. And what they use is called robot See, which is kind of like c++. And anyone can learn it online. And you can even like practice it with simulators. So you don't actually need any software, any hardware to do it. And then in terms of the building, it's like one interesting thing about fixes you can't really Google like guides on how to build a robot necessarily, but you can google like, how I build a chassis, or how do I build a robot that can lift up to you know, x height? Or how do I build something that collects balls. So those are really good places to start. And you'll find tutorials for that, that teach you kind of everything you need to know. And I think of it kind of like, it's like your library or your toolkit. You know, once you learn all of these things, it's like a jigsaw. And every year based on the competition, they put out you can be like, Okay, well, that would be a useful thing to try put on a robot, combine it with this, see if it works or if it blows up and go from there. So yeah, definitely takes a little bit of learning. But all you need to start off with is a few motors, some metal, and even like a hand hacksaw will do. So I wouldn't be too intimidated about just getting into it and trying. It's not one of those things where there's like a syllabus that you have to get through before you can make anything.

Jamie Beaton: 5:27

Wow, brilliant. Okay, exciting. And so walk me back to kind of the first competition you got involved in? Did it come naturally to you? Did you perform well, from like, day one minute into this thing? How did that first competition look like?

Jia Dua: 5:38

So honestly, my first it was probably my first six months to even a year where I didn't even compete on my own. So I was more like watching older kids compete. And that was where I kind of built up my design understanding. Because up till that point, like I wouldn't have even been able to tell you like what a gear ratio is, or how to like calculate it, or the different types of motors and sensors you can use. So that to me was like a good way of a like understanding what I was getting myself into, because a huge time investment to try build a robot and building those skills. When we did start, it was like a real mixed bag. The nice thing is that these are like year long competitions. So you can afford to make a fool of yourself that like the first few ones that you turn up to while you're still learning. And that's actually like a strategy I see a lot of people doing, they'll turn up with really, really crappy robots that have put no effort into the first time, see what everyone else is doing, kind of plagiarize some good ideas and take it from there. And that's one cool thing I really like about VEX is you're not in it alone and sharing ideas isn't something that's looked down upon. It's very, like, collaborative, and how can you build upon other people's innovation?

Jamie Beaton: 6:51

Interesting. That's super cool. Okay. So when you have, for example, like the Math Olympiad, right, there's like, you know, city based competitions, national competitions in international competitions, how does the victory robotics sort of lead or work around the world? You know, what is the sort of first thing you get involved in, and then what are all the different rounds that you kind of pass through to get to those global finals?

Jia Dua: 7:11

Locally, you have things called scrimmages, which is just a fancy way to say robotics competition. But you know, we like to be nerdy like that. So those happen year round. Normally, they'll start in about April, which is when like, the new game is released for each year at the World Championships. And they'll maybe be like one scrimmage every two months for a couple months. And as you get closer to nationals and World Championships, they'll become more frequent. So you have those regional tournaments. In most small countries, almost everyone is invited to the national tournament. In bigger countries, you have to qualify based on how you performed throughout the year in those regional tournaments. And then what they do at like proper competitions, so regional ones normally, like it doesn't actually matter how you perform, you just turn up to practice and meet other people and just get better. When you get to nationals and internationals. We call them World Championships. That's when it matters. So they have round robin sections. So normally, it's about 10 rounds. And the part I like the most is you get completely randomly paired with another team fit each and every single round. So there's like a lot of diversity, I have to be prepared for just about anything. And then the people who perform best in those round Robins, they get picked, but you know, semies quarters and Grand Finals in each of those respective tournament's. So generally the people who win the national tournament get qualified for worlds. And then they have a few other likes special awards. So there's a programming award for the team with the best programming a robot skills, one for the people who drive their robots the best. And also an Excellence Award for a team that has overall the like most innovative design, and it's just good at everything kind of but may not necessarily have won the tournament itself.

Jamie Beaton: 9:01

Awesome. And so I guess I'm thinking about one of these rounds, and what do you kind of actually do to compete? So let's take debating, you know, you've got two teams standing up, the top will get thrown up. And you know, you'll speak off some prepared remarks, probably a bit of improvised commentary. And there's a clear winner. So when you said these kind of two teams get paid to get in Round Robin, and then they go and compete. What are they competing? What's the rubric look like? How does that work?

Jia Dua: 9:25

So what you have is like you have this massive playing field, it's like 12 foot by 12 foot. And you have to Google what it looks like because it changes every year based on the game. But basically, you have every round you call it around your competition is two minutes long. And the first 15 seconds is fully automated. So this is stuff you have to do before you turn up to the match. You'll have pre written a bunch of programming code that gets uploaded into your robot and when they start the competition, it just automatically starts moving. And basically you have to program it to respond to the surroundings. Without any input from you or your team, so that's the first 15 seconds. And based on how you do in that pot, there'll be one team who wins and get some, like bonus points from that period. And then the other minute 45 is called driver control. So one person on your team has like, it's like a literal controller, it's like you're playing a PlayStation, but it's like this, like cheeky robot on the field instead. And so you're working with a teammate to might be like, score a bunch of balls into the net, so build these towers of cubes. And there's like, lots of different modes of playing, like, you can be hella aggressive and like, get into other people's ways, like, you know, knock their towers over, or you can be quite defensive. And there might be one person on the team scoring and one person blocking the other apartment, something like that. So at the end of the game, basically, they'll tally up your points that will be based on like, how many things you scored, and how you did in the autonomous period. And that's how they determine a winner.

Jamie Beaton: 10:59

And for that second period, which is driver controlled, how much of the success comes from the quality of the robot versus the, you know, the driving skills of the person kind of manning the controls?

Jia Dua: 11:09

I would say like, it's really balanced, because you need a good robot to do well in the competition. Because honestly, like a bad robot, just like it won't be able to keep up, so you'll see things like people with robots whose motors keep burning out because they didn't think about like the weight distribution of the robot really well. Or, for example, you know, someone comes and knocks over your robot and you've fallen over and now you can't get back up. So useless for the rest of the round. So that just you know, that renders you pointless in the game. But driver skills are really important as well. And it's a super like, I think, from the outside a part of the game that gets overlooked a lot. So my team, I think, we probably in an average year did like, at least 1,000 hours of driver practice before like World Championships, because depending on the object, sometimes it was like picking up these bowls that are stacked and little pyramids from around the field. And that actually requires a lot of precision. Even if you have a really good robot. So very 50/50 it's, it's fun, because there's something for everyone. Like, you don't have to be this math wizard to do robotics. You can just like eSports and gaming and happen to partner with someone who maybe likes the math part, someone else who likes the programming part. And yeah, just someone who likes to talk to people and, you know, create partnerships and alliances. So there's lots of different skills involved.

Jamie Beaton: 12:33

Wow, I didn't realize that was a drive element. That's super interesting. I'm thinking of all the practice of Windows. Okay, I guess that that leads nicely into this question. So some extracurriculars just take a ton of time. So for example, come back to math Olympiad. You know, the students that I speak to that have won gold and math Olympiad have often devoted the majority of the extra time to math for six, seven years to get to this point, I guess, specifically, in your case, you know, how many hours are you putting into VEX in the beginning? How did it evolve? Kind of how long does it take? How many hours would it take to become the world champion of VEX robotics?

Jia Dua: 13:05

Um, it's definitely not for the faint hearted. I'll say that much. The nice thing is that, like your time commitment can be varied throughout the year. So I would say on average, pretty much every week of the school year, we were doing robotics for at least an hour to an hour and a half, most days after school pretty consistently year round. That said, it wasn't like necessarily every single day, like some weekends, I'd do the whole weekend, and then not do the week at all. And then it also depends on your teammates. So like, if you have different people in charge of different parts of the robot, that like time allocation can become much less. So for example, I'll build the robot, you program it like two separate jobs. In our case, I guess all of us were quite eager to learn and eager to make sure we all had like around a bunch of skill sets. So everyone wanted to turn off and show up so they wouldn't miss out on any part of that process. I will say, though, that like that, certainly not necessary. And you will see that like, at least if you bring a regional tournament, there's lots of people who have quite basic robots, and they still have a grand old time and they learn a lot in that process. And it can be like a good springboard to other things. So some people start VEX realize, you know, I hate building stuff. I don't like using my hands and I don't want my nails to get shipped, which is a phase I went through too. And so they go learn Arduino or focus on programming instead. So the time commitment is up to you, but be seriously competitive. Yeah, hundreds, thousands of hours a year. Definitely.

Jamie Beaton: 14:37

Incredible. I love that. It's good to be as clear that, you know, to get to that world champion level does take a lot of time. I mean, an hour a day, consistently over all those years is a ton of time into this. Now thinking about the team, you mentioned that your team, you know, was overly keen to kind of learn the various skills, how do you think about team composition So coming back to debating that the role of say the first speaker and a third speaker will be very Different, you know, in certain types of debating, the third speaker might not actually be very good at thinking if you know key points to advance, but you're actually is very adaptable and kind of responsive for the opposing team's case. So when you think about your VEX robotics team, I'm sure to sort of do well within your country, maybe you don't have to think about it so carefully. But to win the World Championship, I'm sure your team's gonna be incredibly well optimized. So how do you think about team competition? And what are some of the, you know, winning characteristics of a leading VEX robotics team? Hmm.

Jia Dua: 15:29

So obviously, like that hard work and dedication is like the main thing that you need from every single team member, because it's just not a competition you can do alone, there's just way too much to do. And we've really only talked about the element of like building the robot and everything that happens like outside of the competition sitting. But like, for example, when you get to the World Championships, there's like 1000, teams from like, dozens of different countries. And so being good in your division is like, not enough, you need someone out there like scouting and seeing what the competition can do so that you know what you're up against, if you get partnered, or like paired against a certain team. And then when it gets to picking opponents, you need to know what they're up to, as well. So I would say like, there has to be a mix of technical skills and soft skills in every team. So for example, it may Connor, it was predominantly him. And I most of the time working on the same robot, like really dedicatedly. He's very good at mechanics and has a real eye for like, visualizing how mechanisms will work together. And, you know, looking at a robot and seeing you know, where it's not well optimized, I think I was probably better at like the programming part of things. So if you looked at Connors code, if Connor listens to this, he's gonna hate me. But everything would be based on like time, so you want the robot to go one meter, he'd be like, okay, that's like roughly like point seven, five seconds. And you can do it based on time. Whereas I would normally use like PID, which involves like calculus to get the robot to self optimize distances and acceleration so that it's really consistent. So you have to have people who like have different ways of viewing the same problem to create a robot that will be really versatile in different circumstances. Because that is ultimately what you end up with is you end up with sometimes teammates who are really strong, really different things to you are really good at the same thing. As you see, you need to have like lots of diversity in what you're capable of pulling off.

Jamie Beaton: 17:31

Makes a lot of sense. And just for the non math listeners out there, what is PID, and how does that work?

Jia Dua: 17:37

So that was quite a niche example. It stands for potential integral derivative. And so basically, it uses this idea. So in robotics, what a lot of beginners make mistakes with is, for example, if you want to get to x location, the fastest to grab whatever object is there, you're just like gonna put your motors on like top speed, and then it stops, like right when you get to that distance. And normally, what happens is you overshoot because like, in reality, like robots don't work like that, right? Like this friction, your motors get worse, the more you use them, when your robots battery's low, it slows down. So those aren't very, like effective at being consistent over hundreds and hundreds of runs. So what this does is using senses, for example, like an encoder on your wheel, it can tell exactly how many rotations the left side has done versus the right side to make sure it's going like the right distance in the right direction and accelerating and decelerating at the right time, so that it will really consistently reach the same location each time. So that's just like one example. But it works with like, not just driving and turning, but also lifting your robot or in taking things and like throwing balls out stuff like that.

Jamie Beaton: 18:54

Awesome. Walk me through your favorite robot you've developed? You know what unique design characteristics that have, you know, what kind of engineering breakthroughs did you have in there? I'm keen to understand just how kind of complicated this gets. So can you walk me through kind of your favorite from all those different competitions?

Jia Dua: 19:10

My favorite robot was the one we made in our second year of competing, and it was a competition called Skyrise. So I really like this because our robot was literally bigger than me, when you opened it up. It was like about five foot five, and I'm like five foot. So it's like a running joke. I couldn't carry my own robot and the school edition. So uh, one one cool thing about VEX is to make it like an even game. For people with different resources. Everyone has to use the exact same pot and everyone has to have a robot that starts in the same size. So it's 18 inches cubed. That's like the volume you start in. And so this robot was really cool because it started as this tiny thing, and then it opened up to this huge height. And so we needed like rows of rows of we call them like double four bars. To lift the robot. And then the other thing we had was, you had to create these towers out of these cones that you can stack. So the issue with that is that we had a limited number of modems, we were allowed to use on the robot. And because you've got this thing that opens up to such a big height, it's really heavy. So we needed almost all the robots on the drive just to keep it moving around the field and actually being productive. So we use pneumatics. Instead, which is on you have like a tank of air effectively on your robot, and use that to open and close this little coil that picks up these little cones and like puts them into place to create a tower. And then you had pneumatics on, I hope I'm explaining this well, but you had an arm as well. And so it would lock on to these cubes that you had to then stack on the tower you've built. So like, honestly, at the end of that year, like I was gobsmacked by what we'd created it. And I think like, that wasn't just true of our team. It was true. So many teams that Yeah, because it was just these like, intense robots that was so multifunctional just to play the game, you needed to be able to do so many different things. And like learning how to fit that all into one tiny little size box at the start. I learned a lot that Yeah, I was really proud of that robot.

Jamie Beaton: 21:16

Wow. I mean, it's incredible hearing this, I think a lot about how you know many students doing the pretty standard subjects and maybe a little bit of debating a bit of maybe more united nations. But it's really interesting to see that you took this is junctions, robotics, and then you're building such incredible robots while in high school. That sounds like the kind of thing that you would imagine like some MIT, you know, grad students working on. So it's very inspiring, I think, and how sophisticated are these robots? So like, you know, are the robots that wins for example, VEX robotics, you know, if you went to, for example, like a Caltech lab, would they be significantly different? Or is it the kind of thing where to get to the level that you did in robotics, you've really got to be operating it, you know, a standard that far exceeds what a typical high schooler, you know, can do? And just how complicated does this get relative to these, you know, top engineers in the world?

Jia Dua: 22:04

That's a really good question. I would say like, if you are like a neutral observer, or just turning up to a robotics competition, like, you could be super intelligent and really overwhelmed by what you're observing, because you've never seen anything like that before. Like, we all have fridges, and microwaves and cars, but like, none of us understand, like, what's under the hood, right? Like, you don't know how the axles connect to how the gears connect. But once you start seeing that, it becomes a lot more organic and natural really quickly, and you start to see the patterns and how one movement leads to another movement. So I'd say like anyone's capable of doing it. To get to that level, it definitely requires a lot of time and personal investment. Because the big thing I found is that like, at the end of the day, you're quite alone in the sense that every year it's a new game. So even if they were guides online, like one robot that won worlds last year, is going to be like the worst robot on the field if you tried to reuse it the next year. So in that sense, yes, technical and challenging. But the nice thing about VEX is that you have to use the same parts. So certain modules that are built for you that like to some people, it would be frustrating because it limits your possibilities. But when you've already got such technical challenges, it just means that you know, it's a clearer little constraint, and it's more like solving the puzzle. Yeah. Okay. Make sense? Um, now,

Jamie Beaton: 23:29

We've talked a lot about what makes VEX distinctive, and, you know, some of the characteristics of this competition that you haven't seen in other parts of the sort of STEM world and Olympiad or, you know, other things like debating, but to win these global competitions, there's a sort of certain mentality that's required irrespective. So, you know, this is kind of like the pressure that you might feel the World Championships, particularly defending your title, etc. So, I guess, walk me through what it was like, you know, the first time you won VEX World Robotics, you know, these championships, what was the psychology? You know, how did you feel walk me through the sort of those feeling aspects of this as opposed to the hardcore robotics?

Jia Dua: 24:03

I mean, honestly, I think back now, and there wasn't a lot of nervousness, there was just a lot of excitement, because it's a really social competition as well. And along the way, you literally have to meet people interact with so many people just to get through the rounds. Forget qualifying for worlds. So that was super awesome. I think like my favorite memory was, in my final year, we really wanted to partner up with a steam. They were from China, and they didn't speak any English. And I was like, so determined to partner with them. But that mentor who was like full on Adult he didn't he didn't want us to compete with them. He wanted them to partner with another Chinese team from the same area. And I tell you, I probably spent like three hours at the pit, which is like where they will sit up during you know, breaks and whatnot. And I was just thinking like, how do we get these people to like, like me, how do we like convince them that we're worth being Friends with and like doing this with. And in the end, it was just the funniest thing, like, I learned how to say dumpling in Chinese because I was like, I can't say anything else. But they found that super funny, and then they were way more willing to talk to us. So I think like, that's a really cool part of the competition in terms of the actual, like, strategic play, um, worlds is no different to like every single scrimmage like locally or nationally, it's just that your competition is more intense. So I personally think that most of the work was done before we ever turned up, it was like an older practice you did before you got there. And then actually, while you're there, the biggest part was just being super strategic. So this is one thing we learned after probably like years competing, actually, is that you don't actually have to be super complex to win. So we had the super fancy autonomous, which is that pre programmed period I talked to you about. And that year, what a lot of other teams were doing, who really didn't have very strong programs at all, instead of trying to compete with you, they just like program their robot to knock yours so that it couldn't do the rest of what it was meant to do. And that was like a winning strategy. So I think that was like really reflective of like real world engineering as well, where like, really knowing a lot of fancy stuff comes in handy, like 10% of the time, just being logical is normally what will make you successful. Yeah, I hope that answers your question. I skirted about it a little bit.

Jamie Beaton: 26:28

Definitely and I guess just building on that, um, how did your psychology change from sort of the first time to say the third time, you know, you won this competition? So I guess, I'm sure these social elements are true. The first time and I'm sure that sure all the time. But I'm sure the expectations of you, you know, your own desire to kind of maintain that title and position. I mean, there's must be more pressure probably, in the later years, maybe that first year as you kind of had nothing to lose the first time you stood up. Recently, I was listening to an Olympian who had won a gold medal at the Olympics, and then had kind of come back and felt the pressure to kind of hit that goal, again, was just super high. And as a result, the competition just felt significantly different to that very first time they went. So in your case, how is it second or third one verse? The first? Would you say the same thing? Or did you feel significantly different?

Jia Dua: 27:13

Funnily enough, I felt a lot less pressure, like it was almost the reverse situation, because it was like, you know, you turn up and these teams have like sponsorship from Nike, they getting like $30,000 a year. And it kind of felt good to be like, you know what, like, you don't need all of that, at the end of the day, like, we only have the same volume in which to put a robot. So less is actually more, and it felt really good to have been able to prove that I think I became like a lot more strategic and creative with the years and in some ways, it probably wasn't even a technical change. So we started keeping like design notebooks on which I think we will like, just helped us be a bit more polished. Instead of doing like, hundreds of iterations, we made smart decisions and just saved ourselves time, throughout the year. And then at the competition itself, it was a lot more strategic in terms of thinking about how you get the attention of judges, for example. So one thing people don't talk about is that because you're randomly paired with teams throughout the competition, like there are lots of scenarios with good robots don't make it to the finals, because they've just had bad pairings and you have to be ready for that reality. So I was like, Well, what else can we do to make sure that we'll succeed, regardless of like, things that are outside of our control, one of those things, obviously was like, insane drive skills. So we practiced to the point where we were scoring the highest points on our own in the whole world, and you get an award for that on its own. So we focused on different elements of the competition. And then the third thing was just like, the psychology of the massive competition, too. So there's like thousands of robots, all of them look really similar, because they're all made out of all the same materials. It's like, how do you convince the judge to come to your specific station and like, pay attention to you. And one thing I thought of was, like, why not put something on a robot that they could never expect to see on it, like, flowers, for example. And so I just focused on making a robot look pretty, which was never something I would have done in my first year, because honestly, I would have felt like, you know, people gonna judge me, they're gonna think I'm the girl on the team who's not there, because she has any technical skills. She just likes to draw. And I was like, You know what, I don't care what anyone thinks. And it happened to work because we had this like, really good robot on the field. But it was also like, attractive, and it meant people wanted to come up and ask questions. And on some level, it was like, kind of cheating the system because you just got a lot more judges coming up to you. Whereas normally, they'd be allocating their time, probably more evenly across different teams. So yeah, little things like that. The things I picked up just from years of competing is that you know, you can't not do well without a good technical robot, but there's so many Many other things, so many parts of human psychology that also make a successful team.

Jamie Beaton: 30:05

That's fascinating just for the readers, I should say the listeners out there, when it comes to these judges, so the way you describe kind of affording a judges attention, you know, in other competitions is like a judge assigned to each room so to speak. So that's not kind of like part of the game. How does it work in VEX you sort of need to get the stretch attention, as opposed to them just being kind of distributed evenly. That's quite a unique attribute I haven't heard off before and a high school competition.

Jia Dua: 30:27

So in VEX, I actu lly don't know exactly how the udging works. That's not some hing I don't know if they ever necessarily put out tran parently. But the idea is that there's so many robots, you can retty obviously see which ones are better than others, just by watching a few games like you'll be able to tell like this one's gonna go far this one likely isn't. So that was ike an immediate like sele tion cut process. And apart from that, so the judges aren't real y there for the comp titions themselves, because it's point based. So there's a clea, decisive winner. They're ther for things like excellence awar s. So you know, which team has he most innovative design, and nnovative doesn't mean, you' e necessarily the best robo out there. But it means that like you didn't copy like 100 ther people who had like this one design that seems to work really well for this game. What type of challenges did you go t rough? So one of the things we t lked to judges about was PID. At the time, that wasn't some hing that a lot of teams were incorporating into their robo s. So lots of teams use sens rs, like gyroscopes, and enco ers to make their robots like more efficient, but very few eople were incorporating like actual hard math and calc lus. So that was an inte esting point of discussion. And hen there's also another elem nt of like, you know, givi g back to your community. Beca se, as we've spoken about, like robotics, yeah, it's not the asiest thing to get your foot in the door with. And so team that make an effort to crea e resources for other stud nts in the future, or ment rship. And so that's what the udges were interested in, goin around different tables.

Jamie Beaton: 32:07

Awesome. And you mentioned, the idea that, you know, you you were nervous at the beginning of being judged for thinking through kind of how to make this robot more attractive, but then actually became this huge competitive edge. So that's really good bridge into this topic of broadly, you know, women in STEM, and I think about robotics, I think about probably, you know, a sea of guys, to be honest, doing math, physics and calculus. And this probably isn't necessarily accurate today. But I think about, for example, the physics competitions that I competed in, when I was in high school seven years ago or so. And it was just very skewed in terms of genders. So when you think about VEX, kind of what what are these rooms look like at the beginning? Did it change at all in your in your series of doing VEX, and you know, how did that kind of play to either your advantage or not? As you kind of looked at this as a woman?

Jia Dua: 32:52

Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely improving. So I haven't been to World Champs in a few years now. But when I started, I would say maybe a ratio of like, 30 boys to one girl, honestly. And I definitely saw an improvement just in like the three, four years that we traveled internationally to compete. Definitely like, I think more than in those big rooms, because at the point at which you're at a world championship, you've probably like, hyped yourself up, psych yourself up, you're like, I deserve to be here. Like, clearly my robot is good. Not to say that it isn't still intimidating, but you have that to like, back you up. The real challenge was in smaller rooms closer to home, where it's like, you want to be part of this team. And I'm not saying the guys aren't nice, so friendly. Like most of them try their best. They just don't know what it's like to be the only person in the room who looks a certain way, or who comes from a certain background. So I think like, for me, the scariest part was like initially getting involved in it, cuz honestly, like, I did feel like a the token girl and be kind of the fool because I just didn't know anything. And I look back now and I'm like, it makes sense that I didn't know anything, because I was never like, given the opportunity to learn. Like, I think the closest thing I ever got to like a stem gift as a child was like Lego. And even then it was like a gift we got from my little brother. But I like selfishly chose something that I could play with as well. But like when I was given, you know, kits to like, make stuff it was like, make your own bath bombs and make your own perfumes. It was never like, learn how to build a car or like you know how to use like a radio or something like that. So it's kind of just getting over this barrier of like, you have to ask the stupid questions. If you want to learn otherwise you will you know, you will be the person in the room has no idea what's going on, but you just have to embrace it. And it so happens that generally the girls in the room will be those ones initially because it's changing but how many girls do you know who you give gifts like that to still and that's a question we probably need to keep asking ourselves and changing our behaviors around.

Jamie Beaton: 35:00

Totally, and I think about, you know, this and other areas, for example, you know, in finance, you know, many, it's probably highest achievers that go through Vex robotics, like yourself end up going to these incredible US universities, UK universities and stuff. And many of those people didn't go on to, you know, many careers. And a popular one would be, you know, working on Wall Street. And I think about, you know, how skewed For example, some of these incoming classes are of investment bankers. And then if I think about even the incoming classes, verse, you know, what the partners look like, and it must be pretty intimidating to look up and see, you know, not that much representation, frankly. So I think that's a very healthy trend changing. And I think it's a really powerful message for young girls listening that, you know, this is a movement, this is a bit of a wave, this is a recent, you know, change in the last several years, but it's becoming more and more and more common. And actually, these young girls are being, you know, champion a lot of the time, which is super exciting.

Jia Dua: 35:50

Yeah, the thing is, even if you are the only girl in the room, and even if that is intimidating, like people love, like being able to invest in someone and rally behind someone, like they want to invest in you, even if that is male mentors, of which I had so many, like, if I only had female mentors, I probably wouldn't have been a world champion, because there just weren't enough people out there in my vicinity, who were of that demographic who had this knowledge. But it's also important to have like a combination. So, for example, I'd say my mum was a huge mentor to me, even though she doesn't have a stem background at all. But she was more of an advocate in terms of what it feels like to be the outsider in the room, and how to keep my wits about myself, how also to like, articulate in the moments that I felt like I was maybe being discriminated against in little ways that made me feel kind of bad about myself. And then I had male mentors who like, maybe they started off as technical mentors. And as I got better at understanding and articulating how I was feeling, they were people I could also share, you know, this is something a lot of guys do. Sometimes you do as well, it doesn't make me feel really great. It's something you could be mindful of. And it was really like empowering to me to appreciate that, like, those can be positive conversations, they don't always have to feel like you know, you've like hurt me and you've done all of this and you suck, and it's like me against you like there's ways to have productive conversations and ways to be more inclusive without conflict necessarily.

Jamie Beaton: 37:22

But I think today is a very unique day to be discussing these things. With the election, I guess we think of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Kamala being the first ever female Vice President and also a woman of color in this role. We're talking about this earlier action before the podcast kicked off, but it How are you feeling today? What do you think this means young woman around the world?

Jia Dua: 37:42

I feel so excited, Jamie, I can't even tell you. And my mom actually, she This made me laugh because she was like, my friends had been sending me this quote on WhatsApp. It's like, ladies put your shoes on because there's glass everywhere. Like what does this mean? And I was like mom, like, yes, glass ceilings. I was like, Mom, how did you not pick up on that. But I think like, it is an important day to talk about it. Because at the point where like, we're at a time when society is seeing like the first woman in a powerful political position in America of this nature. That says a lot, right? So for me, like as a woman in STEM, I guess I won't lie and say there's not going to be moments where you're still going to walk into a room and feel a little out of place, or intimidated or like, you know, you're going to look around, and there's not going to be a lot of people who look like you. But that's okay. And for me, the most empowering thing was realizing that being the different one is actually an advantage in and of itself, when I have enough confidence to really own and embrace it. It's just about getting to that stage.

Jamie Beaton: 38:46

Well, I think very, very wise words. And definitely, I think this is a way that's really growing momentum. You know, clearly, I think Kamala Harris doesn't represent this from the beginning, but rather an important moment in this movement. And I think it will only kind of grow and grow and grow. And I think a lot of messaging is about kind of what it means for the young girls in that room. The high schoolers maybe even younger, that are looking at this and thinking about kind of what it means for their own kind of career ambitions. So I guess on that note, you know, what is your vision for what you want to achieve in the future? You've got so many options, you could probably do anything you want in your career, what are you thinking about at the moment?

Jia Dua: 39:21

That's a good question, Jamie. I don't actually know right now. Honestly, my, my interests like career wise and very much reflective of the same type of curiosity that had me like fall in love with robotics in the first place. I walked into that room on a whim like knowing I didn't know anything, and I was just curious to learn. And that's kind of been the same with other interests of mine as well. Like, I'm quite interested in politics. I'm quite interested in social change. And I'm quite interested in like, you know, artistic things like design. So I'm very much still at a point in my life where I'm trying to find a way those things intersect that also be you know, as stable, fulfilling career for me. I think one thing I've done recently that's been really exciting that you mentioned earlier was helping launch online high school that you've created. And so I think for me probably like startups like that other way forward, I'd love to create something of my own at some point. But right now still very much, just trying to figure out how to make these different interests and to see it

Jamie Beaton: 40:24

awesome. And I think about the pathway have chosen for university to go into the US, which is, you know, one of the countries where you can really explore different majors, you can explore different courses. At Harvard, for example, you know, I wasn't just forced to take like, say economics, but I could take things like business in China entrepreneurship and ethical reasoning. And I know, you know, you're actually exploring different pathways. So how's that flexibility in the US kind of played to your advantage? any drawbacks? And would you make the same choice again, to go to America for college?

Jia Dua: 40:53

Yeah, this isn't a bit question, I would definitely make the same choice 1000 times over, I think, I'm not to say that other places aren't incredible for school as well. Like, I think, especially in New Zealand, I've been so lucky with the options I've had. But the scale of these colleges and the resources you have on them, I really can't describe It's crazy. I think in terms of like the liberal arts education, as an engineer, maybe I haven't had the opportunity to really like make the most of that as much till this point. So I started off doing a mechanical engineering degree. And I think I did that, because we had had a lot of success with robotics. So it felt like the natural progression. And I got a year and a half into that. And I was like, you know, like, actually, I'm not sure this is the right thing for me, I have decided to swap to econ and computer science now. So that's been been one interesting thing is that a degree doesn't necessarily have to be it's like, how do you find all the right skills to complement what you want to do. And I think like, for me, I learned a lot of the technical skills I think I want and I need, really, from my time in robotics, outside of the school environment completely. And so now I'm using my college time to understand how business works, and how you can take like these creative technical ideas and turn them into something viable in the real world. So that's kind of the way I'm doing my degree. But definitely the flexibility of being able to learn a bunch of different things, and combine degrees in ways that you can't, in most other countries has been really awesome.

Jamie Beaton: 42:27

I recently did a survey of crimson alumni, you know, these high school students around the world like yourself, who really ambitiously have gone to these top universities and asked kind of one of the most popular things you're studying at school. And, you know, math, computer science and economics were 123. on that list. As far as kind of useful courses, they were deep diving. And so I think your interest in economics, computer science differently, two of the most in demand skills in the world right now, I think the ability to kind of go from understanding a business environment to being able to kind of crunch statistics, analyze data, and sort of move between those things, is a, you know, increasingly more important skill sets, I think these are very smart choices. And then I guess, when you're choosing colleges, you know, you had a really unique and exciting choice between two of the world's great programs, one Princeton University, and often ranked by US News as number one college in America, or the Robertson scholarship, full ride to Duke University that, you know, combines an incredible leadership program, community service, great communities in exchange with UNC, you know, really funded by the legendary hedge fund manager, Julian Robinson, and also Crimson investor. So out of these two, you know, how did you make the call? Was it a clear choice for you? Or was it a difficult one? And, you know, what did you think through?

Jia Dua: 43:38

At the time, it was a really difficult decision, and I remember being so torn, because I mean, it was, it was great, it was like two really, really positive outcomes that I really couldn't have anticipated having. But for my family, like, it was going to be a huge investment. If I was going to go to Princeton, even after financial aid, it would probably mean that for my younger brother, that was a lot of, you know, possibilities for his future, maybe that I was closing. For me, it really came down to like, when I looked into robots, and more, you know, they put a lot of emphasis on like building this community. And one big part of the scholarship is, you know, this is how they phrase it. This is not a reward for everything you've done so far, it's a chance for you to keep exploring, and that's a pressure I feel like a lot of people feel like they experience when they get to college. So for example, if I didn't have a scholarship funding me, I think I would have been a bit more conservative and the classes I took and the types of activities I invested my time in. And there's definitely this feeling of you know, go to Wall Street, go into consulting, do something that you know, is reliable and will pay well, whereas robertson is normally encouraged me to be more experimental, but has forced me to be more experimental. So in my first summer, I ended up volunteering teaching in like rural Mississippi. Which was like an insanely rewarding experience. But what I know I probably selfishly wouldn't have done if I wasn't having a fun that summer. But it's been one of the most like life changing experiences I've ever had. So I'm super grateful for it. In hindsight, I think as amazing as the schools are, really, if you're like a bright person, if you're a dedicated person, you can succeed anywhere. I'd say like, my biggest advice when choosing schools now that I've actually had time in the States, is actually different schools really have different personalities and cultures. And so instead of focusing so much on rankings, because once you're looking at, you know, the top 10, the top 20, like, they're all incredible, like, a rank of one or two difference really isn't the biggest deal, at least in my personal opinion. So pick a place where you feel like the people are people who are going to be your lifelong friends, and where you're going to be forced to keep growing in new ways. Because we all talk about, you know, like this intellectual curiosity and stuff and essays. And it means a lot when you actually live that out in your college experience, too. I think it makes it much more rewarding,

Jamie Beaton: 46:09

Very well said. I think, kind of reflecting back on high school, if you go down this path, which have been on you know, you can have too many grades, because things have really looked gone really exceptionally from the VEX to other things you've been involved in, in the outcomes. But if I reflect back on, for example, my time in high school, I would have done things like you know, take computer science earlier, or, you know, learn Mandarin rather than French. I did love French. But I think, you know, times are changing. And you know, China's sort of really growing in significance around the world. What would you do? If you could rewind the clock, you will kind of 13 years old, again, hitting into high school, they're armed with a bit of foresight, you know, what, what changes would you have made, if any, to your kind of high school journey?

Jia Dua: 46:46

This is such a tricky question. Because I am like, I'm very conscious of the fact that some of the decisions I made were ones that weren't necessarily like choices, you know, my school, for example, didn't really allow you to take a lot of classes accelerated. So that meant that I did calculus a year ahead, I did physics a year ahead. And I did programming early on. But apart from that, I wasn't really allowed to accelerate. And I knew that was a tremendous waste of time for being honest, I think I could have fit in a lot more math, and especially in the robotics for that would have helped me heaps, it was stuff I had to self learn in my own time. Computer Science, I'd say a lot of high schools don't have fantastic curriculums. And I wish I had known more about how to self learn that and where to look for those resources and where to start as well. Because it's like really overwhelming. There's what like 600 programming languages that you can start with. And it's so iterative, like one line in your code means you don't know what to do next. So I wish there was a bit more support and resourcing in that front. So I would have started those subjects earlier if I had a way to do so. And then the other thing I would have done is, I would have still sampled a whole bunch of things in terms of extracurriculars, but then I would have picked ones that I actually really liked, instead of doing like 2030 different things, and just kind of, I would say maybe wasting my time at points, because honestly, like, you don't need to have a trillion things on your college application. But you do need a few that you can show you really cared about and did something significant and meaningful with so have diversity within that. But don't feel this pressure to do everything and be everywhere. I'd say like, I was actually pretty good about having a balanced social life at high school, maybe not in my last year. But up till that point, I definitely make time for it. And I learned a lot from that too, especially when you get overseas, you know, being able to socialize and connect with people has been like, as powerful in my toolkit as any of the other things I've learned from, you know, academic classes and courses.

Jamie Beaton: 48:52

Well, then I definitely think about my time in Business School, for example, and how valuable just building strong relationships has been with my classmates, you know, authentic bonds you bought in class can turn into incredible career opportunities, you know, investors, all kinds of things. So I feel like those students that have the single minded academic focus and probably come out of high school, a bit lacking on the social side, might get a good college outcome, but they've got a man rapidly relearn those skills or kind of pick them up in college, because it is pretty essential. And I think it's hard to really thrive in a US college, which is such a social thing. You know, without a bit of those, you know, skills you've developed.

Jia Dua: 49:27

Yeah, absolutely. You did mention one thing that about was it like super academic kids coming out of high school like, that's one thing High School is good for and bad for at the same time, because you know, your pathway to success is so clearly defined for you. This is vague advice, but I wish I had been a bit more creative in the ways in which I define success for myself, and let myself be a bit more experimental in that sense. Yet, don't be afraid to try different pathways. Not everything has to be, you know, superficial Traditional,

Jamie Beaton: 50:00

I guess we're coming to the end of our discussions, Jia, it's been a real blast. Any final words you would leave for our ambitious listeners around the world?

Jia Dua: 50:08

Well, I'd say thank you so much for listening. If you got this far, that's you, you deserve an award already. But especially if there's any girls listening, and our podcast is not nearly enough time to discuss, like, what this journey like through robotics and through stem was like for me, but believe me that there have been thousands of moments of, you know, lacking self confidence, feeling embarrassed, having regrets feeling like an imposter. Don't let any of that get to you. And same for boys or anything in between whoever's listening, it's all good to start new things where you suck at first, if I had turned away from robotics, because I sucked when I began, we'd never be having this conversation, because really, I was the dumbest person in the room at that point. But you know, it took a lot of hard work, and we managed to change that. So you really are capable of doing whatever you want. In terms of college applications. I know it seems like college is like the biggest thing in your whole life and getting into your dream school is like the biggest thing. You know your dream, do things that actually make you happy though, and I promise you'll get somewhere that you will be proud of

Jamie Beaton: 51:13

Powerful words. Thank you very much Jia.