A robot friend suggested we go and get our nails painted by a robot!  So we went and did that!  The first time I saw a nail painting robot was at CES 2018.  A tiny 3D printer printing designs onto fingernails. 

The woman at the booth wouldn’t let me try because I didn’t work at a makeup or a fashion company.  When she asked where I was from, I said Australia, and she didn’t seem to like that!  :)

CES 2018 where I first encountered a nail polish robot, but wasn't allowed to try the experience.

Fast forward a few years, and we can now get our nails painted at the local Target!  So I paid the $5 intro fee via the app, chose my nail polish colour and waited for 3 people before me to go.  When it was my turn, the assistant swapped out the nail polish colours, I sat down and I inserted my hand into the machine.  As my hand entered the machine, a strap gently tightened around my hand to hold it in place.  You're meant to relax your hand and fingers as much as you can, so you move it the least amount possible.  You place one finger at a time. 

At the Target

Press a button to tell the machine you’re ready and it takes 250 photos of your finger nail, to figure out the xyz-positions of where to put the nail polish resin.  It then prints out a series of dots on a blot paper to get rid of air holes in the nail polish bottle, and then applies nail polish to your fingernail - like a 3D printer applies filament!  It was really cool!  But if you moved just a little bit between the time the photos were taken and the application, then the nail polish would be a little off.  The robot starts with the fingernail’s outline and works its way to the centre, by drawing the largest perimeter in the unpolished area each time, like a snail.  The machine only applies one layer of nail polish quite thickly, making it super quick!  You then take your entire hand out, readjust, and repeat the same process for the next fingernail!

My fingernail getting painted.  You can see the extruder over my nail,
laying down the resin.  You can see the yellow blot paper in the background. 

You can do all 10 fingers in 10 minutes if you’re very relaxed and don’t move your fingers!  I wasn't happy with the results for two of my fingers, so the assistant used nail polish remover and the robot went again.

After the robot had finished with both hands, the assistant then finished up by applying drops of lacquer drying drops to each finger to smooth out any ridges and inconsistencies and to accelerate the drying process.

Right now, it’s $8 for a follow-up session within 3 weeks, or $10 usually.

I really liked the range of colours to choose from, having the assistant there was reassuring and elevated the user-experience, and it was a super fun social activity to do with a girlfriend!  I didn't manage to get an after shot of my nails because I was waving them around to dry!  But here's my friend's after robot-nail shot.

I love exploring new cities!

So I was super thrilled to visit Phoenix in Arizona, and speak at ASQ’s Lean and Six Sigma Conference as their opening keynote speaker. It was their first in-person conference in two years!

It was wonderful to present to such a receptive audience on starting something from nothing and always reviewing and improving your processes.

It was so interesting meeting all the attendees and hearing about their manufacturing processes and how they think about optimization.

Phoenix is beautiful!  I would have wanted to do more sightseeing, but I had team meetings and a massive proposal due the next day, so sadly, I spent most of my time in my hotel room working on those things.  I look forward to going back to Phoenix to explore more soon!

The Chinese History Museum invited me to be part of their exhibition on notable Chinese Australians. In February, over Chinese New Year, my mum came to visit me in Melbourne and we went to see the exhibition together after a delicious yum cha brunch.

Located at the Chinese Museum, the One Million Stories Exhibition and the Chinese Australian Achievers exhibit will take you on a 200-year journey from when the first Chinese Australians migrated to our shores in 1818 to those who have arrived recently. The exhibition endeavours to enable all Chinese Australians to find a place in Australian society and to contribute to building a progressive and multicultural nation.

This event celebrates the contribution of outstanding Australians for their ingenuity, talent, skill, creativity, hard work, conviction, and efforts to make our society a better place.

We bring you 28 Achievers and their ‘formula for success.’ The Achievers also share their insights and understanding as to how important their identity, as Chinese Australians, was to their journey.

The Chinese Australians documented at the exhibition are:

Vernon Ah Kee | Tony Ayres | Marita Cheng AM | Frank Chew OAM | Elizabeth Chong AM | Pr. Darryl Low Choy | Paul Coghlan AO | Jenny Margaret Kee AO | King Fong OAM | Russell Jack AM | Lee Lin Chin | Li Cun-Xin AO | Hong Lim | Lin Jong | Pr. Kwong Chiu Lee Dow AO | Maurice Leong Kwok Cheong | Gilbert Lau AM | Benjamin Law | Jennifer Kemarre Martiniello | Irene Kwong Moss AO | Alice Pung | Vivian Wang | Dr Eric Tan | William Wang | Eddie Kent Woo | Right Rev. George Tung Yep | Zhou Xiaoping

Elizabeth Chong AM is my buddy - we sat next to each other at the Order of Australia ceremony and she invited me to her family celebrations that night afterwards. Here we are together with our awards at the Order of Australia ceremony. We were the only two Chinese Asians receiving honours that day in Government House and we were placed together because our last names are so similar alphabetically. She is the best looking 88 year old I know!

I’m super happy to see some of my friends included in the exhibition, including writer Alice Pung, ballet dancer Li Cun-Xin AO, maths teacher Eddie Woo, and writer Benjamin Law. Go check out the exhibition at the Chinese History Museum to find out more!

On this day, 10 years ago, I was named the "Young Australian of the Year", by the Prime Minister of Australia, in front of Parliament House, on Australia Day, in front of 1 million people.

That day changed my life.

Four years before that, as a second year university student, I founded Robogals to get girls interested in engineering through going to schools and teaching robotics. Within a few years, we expanded internationally throughout UK and Europe and North America. Robogals became a movement with thousands of people working together to inspire the next generation.

Overnight, I received hundreds of speaking requests, Robogals raised enough money to be sustainable without me and we increased our impact around the world many times over.

When I looked back in late 2012, it didn't feel like much had changed at all.  I was still living in the same house, I was still rushing around running Robogals, i was still a university student!  But looking back even a few years later - I know that everything changed that day.

Now Robogals is a thriving organisation with a strong board, and a talented leadership team, continuing our mission 14 years later throughout the world.

Since then, I have cofounded AI company Aipoly to help blind people recognise objects in their everyday lives, and founded robotics company Aubot, that has designed, manufactured and distributed robots that help people in their everyday lives throughout Australia. We’ve had hundreds of thousands of users, reached tens of millions of people and won awards all over the world. The award I’m most proud of is being named the youngest member of the Order of Australia “for significant service to science and technology, particularly to robotics,” in 2019 (aka my “knighthood” as my friends like to call it).

When I was 20, I thought about what I wanted to achieve by the time I was 50… and I decided I would get it done by the time I turned 30. I wrote about it in this blog post back then! https://www.maritacheng.com/blog/19-writing-my-memoirs.html

Well the thing I wanted to achieve was make a robot that would useful in the home. I achieved that with Jevaroo, a robotic arm that can do useful tasks around the home, that is mobile on a movable platform.

When I was in high school, I heard the quote, “most people overestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years,” by Bill Gates.

I’m glad I got to achieve all my goals in the 10 years since YAOTY. I’m glad I designed, built, mass-produced and shipped our robot throughout Australia. Everything else was a bonus.

I’m glad I got to do so many things I never could of thought of or imagined - travelling to 50 countries around the world and giving 400+ speeches about AI and robotics in 14 of those countries.

I could have also never predicted that I would be awarded a Member of the Order of Australia (AM). That was an honor I did not foresee and that floored me.

So just going in the direction that feels right and authentic to you can lead to so many (good) surprises you never could have imagined. But also, the scariest pitfalls you could have never imaged.

Which is why having the deep-rooted authentic feeling that you’re doing the right thing, and that you’re on the right path is so important.

I don’t know what the next decade will bring. But I plan to live it authentically, taking everything I learned with me, with all the love, joy, compassion and wonder that I can muster. Because life is short. Take all your chances. Life is either a daring adventure or it is noting at all. 

BigSpeak named me one of top 10 female keynote speakers and one of their top 10 technology keynote speakers! I am utterly delighted! I only received my O1 to speak in the USA a year ago, so to have such recognition in the USA is a real feather in my cap! I love traveling the world, meeting people and sharing my stories. I look forward to traveling to more places around the USA and sharing my stories!