“Now when I ran this office it was neat as a pin,” laughed Nana Naisbitt as she unlocked the door to the back of the Telluride Elementary School, where 60 neuromorphic engineers had set up their workshop for the summer. Computers, wires, and robots littered the halls and classrooms and scientists bent over their projects. The scientists, who herald from the four corners of the world, have been coming to Telluride through the Telluride Science Research Center for about nine years. While the neuromorphic engineers' workshop runs for about three weeks, other groups of scientists generally meet for one or two weeks over the course of the ten-week center, according to Naisbitt, TSRC Coordinator and Executive Director of the Pinhead Institute.
"The neuromorphic engineers are unique," she said, "because they actually build things where as the others mostly just have PowerPoint presentations and a Q and A discussion after it." Matt Cheely, one of the neuromorphic engineers from the University of Maryland, agreed wholeheartedly and explained the basis of neuromorphic engineering. "Some people want to learn about engineering through biology, and some people want to learn about biology through engineering. It's the practical and the scientific approaches," he said. "We make these guys so that we can study processes that we take for granted, like our motor skills and senses."
The "robot room," as Cheely called it, was filled with robots that moved eerily like animals at the command of their creators. Among the robots were "kheperas," which looked like mini pool-cleaners on wheels and zipped randomly around an enclosure. When they approached the enclosure's walls, they responded to built-in sensors and rolled away so they wouldn't hit the walls. In another corner a snake writhed on the floor in a continuous wave, and "Marilyn" walked like a real person (or at least was meant to). She lifted one leg, released her mechanical muscles, and let her foot to fall to the ground the way we do."This workshop is lots of fun," Cheely said. "People bring equipment and crazy ideas, and then we collaborate." The neuromorphic engineers are all about sharing, he insisted."We're happy and we have fun!" All one has to do is recall their appearance in the Fourth of July Parade as the bizarrely dressed "Neuromorphs" to believe that. And what makes them choose Telluride? "I actually came for the first time three years ago driving a truck of equipment," said Cheely. Many of the other students come on recommendation from their advisors and professors, he said, and then they fall in love with Telluride and keep coming back. "The two main organizers of this specific workshop are the University of Maryland and the Institute for Neuroinformatics in Zurich, so a lot of us are from there," he added. Stephen Berry of the University of Chicago started TSRC with the idea of breaking away from the traditional academic setting of professor and student and remaking the hierarchy.
He wanted an environment that included graduate students, all over the world where they would meet as equals in discussion. He also wanted to base TSRC in Telluride's informal setting Naisbitt described the process: "A faculty member from some university decides that they want to hold a workshop and applies to centers like the TSRC to hold it. Ten board members and one president reviews the request and then, if approved, they invite everyone else." The workshops are growing in popularity, said Naisbitt, as evidenced by the 280 scientists in town this summer for ten different workshops. That number has grown from 180 last year and seven in the first year of the center's operation. With the Pinhead Institute in charge of TSRC's operation for the first time this summer, Naisbitt is hopeful that the collaboration will yield more of an academic atmosphere in Telluride."When people are looking for a place to retire or own a second home, they usually choose Aspen because of the intellectual life," said Naisbitt who grew up in the backyard of the University of Chicago and attended the university herself. Scientists in Telluride are in the process of enriching the community and instigating the beginnings of a campus-like ambiance. "There really is a lot of potential here," she continued, noting the abundance of "people with global capabilities." To integrate the scientists into town life, this summer Naisbitt started "Town Talks," which holds lectures by TSRC scientists in the Wilkinson Public Library once a week. “I'd like the Pinhead Town Talks and TSRC to be an indicator that a campus-like setting could be successful here,” she said. The talks are aimed at a highly educated lay audience and are presented like an introductory class along the lines of those presented at elite universities like Naisbitt's own alma mater. Since their debut on June 24, each talk has attracted audiences anywhere from 65-100 people, and are proving to be the perfect means by which the community can interact with the scientists. Although it is only the first year, Naisbitt anticipates the beginnings of more campus-like activities that will draw a different tourist audience to Telluride. "Also," she chuckled, "the time frame of 6 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. is perfect mind candy before dinner. It would make a perfect date – a perfect early date – and would get people talking about interesting things." And with other scientists from TSRC attending lectures, the lay audience is in for quite an experience. "It's like a peer-review," Naisbitt explained. "With the lecturer's equals in the audience, everyone else gets to see the back-and-forth, the challenge, and the argument in much more depth." This intellectual activity will grow to be motivating, predicted Naisbitt. "Someone with the funds and the wherewithal will be inspired to start something up here in Telluride," she said.