In this joyful, heartfelt talk featuring demos of her wonderfully wacky creations, Simone Giertz shares her craft: making useless robots. Her inventions — designed to chop vegetables, cut hair, apply lipstick and more — rarely (if ever) succeed, and that’s the point. “The true beauty of making useless things [is] this acknowledgment that you don’t always know what the best answer is,” Giertz says. “It turns off that voice in your head that tells you that you know exactly how the world works. Maybe a toothbrush helmet isn’t the answer, but at least you’re asking the question.”
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33 Comments
The easiest way to be at the top of your field is to choose a very small field.
carrot top yo
Outstanding Simone!!!
BEST TED TALK EVER
You can really hear her Swedish accent at certain parts of this TedTalk!
i love her
"you inspired me to build useless things" is a compliment that doesn't sound like a compliment
Good job simone
Yetch.
His advice is very good and sincere.
At the time of this talk, she had a golf ball sized brain tumor, and just about three weeks after this she had brain surgery to remove it. And she still delivered this inspiring talk about shity robots. She is incredible!
Queen
god she is hilarious ksjbdfjkbdjfbbf
She's truly comfortable being weird with her stuff
I really admire her, she's building whatever she wants to. That's the beauty of Engineering, Computer Science, Architecture, and many other fields out there
You should be so brave and confident to confess that your machines are useless but you are proud of what you are doing
She looks like Dianna Cowern 🙂
Long before 1990 I was growing up and decided it was too difficult to turn the light on when I woke up every day. The light switch was at least nine feet from the spot my feet landed on the floor. So I raided the garage plastic hardware drawer set and found some string and some eyelets. Somehow I managed to install just enough eyelets and attached the string to the light switch in a loop so I could pull 'on' and pull 'off' using separate strings. I was eight years old in 1968.
The process of building things never ceased to keep me occupied as long as I could dumpster dive at nearby construction sites as the neighborhood expanded into the 1970's. It wasn't 'stealing' if it was already inside a dumpster, right?
Academics isn't always learned through books you see. My high school GPA was barely 2.0 but I learned math through scoring in bowling leagues. I also learned that the more strikes you rolled the easier it was to keep score. I learned how to swing a hammer like the master carpenter I am today at 61 years of age by the time I was fourteen.
I was bullied and teased a lot due to my uninspired GPA. I think Simone is brilliant. I still build many things to this day and get paid quite well for it. I think tomorrow since it will be raining, which is code for a day off for my biz, I will go out to my shop and build something 'stupid'.
Thank you Simone.
Hi Simone, …. Your TED talk was funny and intriguing , but on a more thoughtful note, I have a thought here…..Robotics has already started coming full-swing as an every day thing in our lives, ( CNC production of machine parts, etc.), And we need people to service, and design them…. Maybe, as an adjunct for anyone directing people into the Robotics Industry as a career ….. You could touch upon the "Why's " of the importance of knowledge in; Hydraulics , Electromechanics, Electronics and Coding is so important to Future Robotics Designers, in your Lectures….and what prerequisites they would need from high school before hitting College and University with grandiose expectations of success. And also Why fluency in programming languages such as: Python, C#, Perl …… and Machine Language, is imperative to their success. Ciao.
Codebullet
Es maravillosa 🙂
I would not want to be naked in front of people. That’s not how you get someone to be in front of a crowd when they are camera shy. That’s the worst Nightmare in fact
You and Dianna made me Iaugh so much, I had to watch your Ted.
还是手工耿有技术含量 且更有意思
she is nervous…those short deep breaths between the wordds say it all….love her effort tho it was great
She should do a collaboration with Mark Rober….. should be fun
PrehistoryEdit
Preservation and Ruin are the two opposing gods of the Mistborn world, Scadrial. They are described as Shards of Adonalsium;[11] fragments of the power of creation. Preservation and Ruin agree to a pact, with an initial stalemate between them, each aware that only together could they create and achieve their separate goals while knowing they would never gain complete final satisfaction. Preservation could not keep things perfect and unchanging and Ruin could not destroy completely. Ruin is of destruction, without malice, but intent on reducing everything to the molecular level. Imprisoned by Preservation in an attempt to prevent Ruin from destroying the world, Ruin's consciousness was trapped by the Well of Ascension and kept mostly impotent. Ruin's remaining strength enables it with small powers to alter writing and Feruchemical Memories, but it cannot alter writing inscribed in metal or normal memories. It was Preservation that wanted to create life on Scadrial, but needed Ruin's help to do so. In exchange for Ruin's help, Preservation promised that Ruin would be allowed to destroy everything one day. However, after they had succeeded in creating the world, Preservation reneged on its bargain and sacrificed a significant portion of its power to create the Well of Ascension as a prison for Ruin, thus preventing the destruction of the world.
מצאתי גואוט נשית
עיזה
I think you would do amazing in the entertainment business, comedy movies or series or whatever – but your tinkering on your YT channel still has your funny dialogue so you already are in that biz but independantly. And that's great. You are an inspiration, and i mean that.. especially for many young girls i reckon. But me as a 30+ male as well.
i love the whole thing….but perhaps my favorite part is the closed caption reading "googly eyes rattle"
She’s so naturally beautyful and confident. I wish her the best
the popcorn shot was very impressive
"People ask me if I'll ever build something useful"
since this talk on her main channel has built a bedframe, a lampshade that doubles as a plant pot, renovated an entire van into accommodation for her mum, made an absolutely gorgeous stained glass window…
Its comedy
She joked and no one laughed.