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Transcript: Robotics Manufacturing Engineer
Trading Skills: Robotics Manufacturing Engineer
Descriptive Transcript
[Bright music plays]
A child says, WHEE!
[Logo] “t.v.o kids original.” The animated multicoloured logo bounces onto a white background. The word "kids" has an eye in the orange letter "d" and a smile in the lime green letter "s".
[Child giggling]
[Upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: Gears turn on a blueprint.
[Opening credits] T.V.O. kids presents.
DESCRIPTION: Akeylah, a girl with long black hair in tight braids, is wearing a pink plaid button-down shirt. Akeylah stands beside Brody, a boy with short, curly brown hair, wearing a long-sleeved brown shirt.
BRODY AND AKEYLAH: Welcome to Trading Skills!
DESCRIPTION: Akeylah and Brody cross their arms and stand back to back.
AKEYLAH: The show where we take turns…
BRODY: …trying a skilled trade.
AKEYLAH: I'm Akeylah.
BRODY: I’m Brody.
AKEYLAH: A skilled trade is a job that requires a special skill.
DESCRIPTION: Videos show Akeylah and Brody trying different skilled trades. Brody examines a dog and controls an underwater remotely operated vehicle. Akeylah works in a recording studio and a salon and examines a car engine.
BRODY AND AKEYLAH: There are lots of skill trades.
BRODY: And you might find the perfect trade for you!
AKEYLAH: Maybe there's a trade that could change your life.
BRODY: So come with us into the trades.
BRODY AND AKEYLAH: On Trading Skills!
[Title] Trading Skills.
[Gentle upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: In the Skills Space, Brody lies on the worktable wearing swim flippers and a snorkelling mask, a mustard-coloured t-shirt over a white long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans. Various tools hang on the back wall. An L.E.D. sign featuring a screwdriver and a wrench shines bright on the wall. Hard hats hang above. Akeylah sits at the bottom of the loft stairs while reading a book. She wears a pink and plaid button-down shirt and jeans.
AKEYLAH: Today in the Skills Space, I'm giving Brody some space. He went on a walk earlier today and dropped his house keys.
BRODY: Yeah, and in the worst place ever.
AKEYLAH: The swamp.
BRODY: I know what you're thinking.
DESCRIPTION: Brody sits up and takes off his snorkelling mask.
BRODY: Brody has all his snorkel gear on. Why doesn't he just go get those keys? Well, I thought that too. Until I remembered…
AKEYLAH: He's afraid of the swamp.
BRODY: If only there was a way for me to get into the swamp without having to...
AKEYLAH AND BRODY: Get into the swamp?
BRODY: Well, see you soon. Hopefully.
AKEYLAH: Hold on. I'm reading that there's a manufacturing engineer named Amanda. She makes these cool robots that can go underwater and even grab things.
DESCRIPTION: In a workshop, Robotics Manufacturing Engineer Amanda Logiudice leans against a remotely operated vehicle. Amanda has long brown hair and glasses and wears a navy zipper sweater over a blue T-shirt.
AKEYLAH: Brody, I think this is the key to your conundrum.
BRODY: What about my keys? All I heard was robots. Don't wait up.
DESCRIPTION: Brody climbs off the table.
AKEYLAH: Bye.
DESCRIPTION: Brody waddles across the Skills Space in his flippers. Akeylah returns to her book.
[Upbeat music plays]
[Title] Trading Skills.
[Gentle upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: Brody walks into a building with a sign that reads, Deep Trekker. He wears a blue pullover hooded sweater.
BRODY NARRATING: I trekked my way to Deep Trekker Inc. in Kitchener, Ontario, to learn all about underwater robots.
DESCRIPTION: In the Deep Trekker workshop, Brody looks around. He walks past a bearded man working at a counter with a variety of tools.
BRODY: This place is huge. Awesome.
[Whirring]
DESCRIPTION: A robot on four wheels connected to a cable slowly rolls up to Brody.
BRODY: Whoa, it's a robot.
DESCRIPTION: Brody kneels in front of the robot.
BRODY: Oh, hey there. I'm looking for Amanda. Does she work here?
[Robots whirring and beeping]
BRODY: I see. I don't speak robot.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda steps out from behind a storage shelf. She walks up to the robot, and Brody stands.
AMANDA: Hey, Brody, that's okay. English works really well around here.
BRODY: Hi, Amanda. Who's this little guy?
AMANDA: So this little guy is an R.O.V. or remotely operated vehicle. And this one is a pipe crawler. So it's designed to go underwater.
BRODY: Fascinating. And you build them?
AMANDA: I do. As a manufacturing engineer, I help with the designing, the building, and the testing of the R.O.V.s before they're shipped out to customers. If you're interested, I can show you more.
BRODY: You bet I am! After you, Mr. Crawler.
DESCRIPTION: The pipe crawler R.O.V. turns around and slowly rolls around the storage shelf. Brody and Amanda follow.
[Upbeat music plays]
[Title] Trading Spaces.
[Gentle upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: In another part of the workshop, Amanda leads Brody to a table of R.O.V.s in front of a large pool.
AMANDA: Brody, everything you see on this table is an R.O.V., and they come in a lot of different shapes and sizes.
BRODY: They all look great, but how do they work underwater?
AMANDA: The really cool thing is that these are fully sealed and watertight. Nothing can get in there. No water, no fluid. Then, we hook up the R.O.V. to this nifty tether here, and it gets controlled using this controller.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda pulls a yellow tether from a cable reel and grabs a remote from the table.
AMANDA: To move around and swim, it has thrusters.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda points to one of the larger R.O.V.s on the table.
AMANDA: So there's two in the front, two in the back, and two at the top here. And then to see and get your live feed onto the controller, you have a camera that you can rotate up and down, and you can also grab things underwater too, using this grabber.
BRODY: Nice to meet you.
DESCRIPTION: Brody shakes hands with the R.O.V. via its claw-like grabber.
[Upbeat music plays]
[Title] Trading Skills.
[Gentle upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: Elsewhere in the workshop, Brody follows Amanda over to a workbench.
BRODY NARRATING: Next, we needed to learn the nuts and bolts of robot making.
AMANDA: So, Brody, this bench is set up for an R.O.V. repair where we use special tools called fixtures and jigs to help build parts of an R.O.V., kind of like this thruster, which helps the R.O.V. move.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda hands Brody an R.O.V. propeller-like thruster and turns to a laptop.
AMANDA: So we start off with a computer-aided design model, which then gets made into an actual fixture, like this one. And this one was difficult to use.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda picks up the fixture, a square-shaped object with a circular carving in the centre.
AMANDA: The new version has a nice guide and is a lot easier for our builders to use and assemble thrusters with.
BRODY: So you basically invent tools.
AMANDA: That's right. So let's do a repair.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda picks up a thruster dangling off an R.O.V. by a cable.
AMANDA: We already have a thruster that is connected, but this is kind of useless if it's just floating around in the air. So we want the thruster to be put back onto the R.O.V. We're going to guide that notch at the back.
DESCRIPTION: Brody pushes the thruster into a thruster-shaped hole in the R.O.V.
AMANDA: There we go. Push it and wiggle it down just so you get it into the foam of the R.O.V.
DESCRIPTION: Brody wiggles the thruster further into the R.O.V.
AMANDA: We're gonna take two screws. You're gonna put them in the screw holes that you see on the thruster.
BRODY: Okay.
DESCRIPTION: Brody slides screws into screw holes on the thruster.
AMANDA: Great job.
BRODY: Two.
AMANDA: And now you use the screwdriver to tighten down the screws.
DESCRIPTION: Brody tightens the screws with a screwdriver.
BRODY: Done.
AMANDA: Awesome.
DESCRIPTION: Later, the R.O.V sits upright on the workbench.
AMANDA: Now it's time to make sure that all of the thrusters work. We're going to take the controller. Can you do the honours? Run the thrusters by moving the right-hand and the left-hand joysticks for me. Doesn't matter what direction.
DESCRIPTION: Brody takes the R.O.V. controller from Amanda.
BRODY: Oh, yeah. All right. Propellers, propel!
DESCRIPTION: Brody moves the joysticks on the controller, and the thruster propellers on the R.O.V. power on.
[Thruster whirring]
AMANDA: That's great! It looks like they're repaired.
BRODY: You feel better?
DESCRIPTION: Brody looks at the R.O.V. and smiles. The front of the R.O.V., with the camera, tilts up and down.
[R.O.V. whirring]
AMANDA: I think that's a yes.
BRODY: Yeah!
[Upbeat music plays]
[Title] Trading Skills.
[Gentle upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: At another workbench, Brody and Amanda sit on stools with bottles of water.
BRODY NARRATING: With our R.O.V. assembled, I had a chance to catch up with Amanda.
DESCRIPTION: Brody adjusts his seat. Amanda smiles.
BRODY: How'd you get into being a manufacturing engineer?
AMANDA: In high school, actually, I was on a robotics team where I was exposed to how to design and build robots out of the water. And that really drew me into wanting to study engineering. And I was able to get this job through one of my professors finding a job posting for a manufacturing engineer here at Deep Trekker. And I applied immediately because underwater robots is super cool.
BRODY: What do you love about what you do?
AMANDA: No day is the same. Every day, something new comes up. There are new projects, new problems to solve. So I really like how there's always some sort of action going on. And I get to work a lot between different departments at Deep Trekker with our mechanical designers, our hardware designers, and I work very closely with our production builders, who do a fantastic job here.
BRODY: Could you tell me some steps I can take to do what you're doing?
AMANDA: So in high school, I'd highly recommend joining any technology or robotics teams that will get you some really good exposure. Taking a bunch of courses like computer engineering, computer science, technology courses in high school, and that will put you into a really good place for when you apply for engineering programs at various universities and colleges in the province.
BRODY: That all sounds great. So what do we do next?
AMANDA: It's off to the pressure tanks.
BRODY: Let's go!
[Upbeat music plays]
[Title] Trading Skills.
[Gentle upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: Amanda leads Brody over to a large circular tank of water.
BRODY: Whoa, what does this big thing do?
AMANDA: So this is a pressure tank. So every fully built R.O.V. needs to get pressure tested. We need to put it in the tank and go through a pressure test.
DESCRIPTION: Two people put an R.O.V. into the pressure tank. A man in a grey hooded pullover sweater lowers the lid of the tank over bolts with a remote. He bolts the lid to the tank with a power wrench, then turns a valve.
[Nuts and bolts clanking]
AMANDA: Once it starts pressurizing, there is a screen on the wall that'll show you what the pressure is at in the tank. You can see on the controllers the live video feed from the R.O.V. inside of the tank. When these R.O.V. s swim really deep down into the ocean and experience a lot of high pressure, we want to make sure that they don't leak, they don't break, or at the very worst, they don't have an implosion.
BRODY: Implosion?!
AMANDA: Yes, so we don't want them caving in on themselves.
BRODY: I've got to see that.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda and Brody walk over to a laptop.
AMANDA: This is an implosion.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda plays a video from an R.O.V. in the pressure tank. In the video, water splashes.
AMANDA: Did you catch that? That happened really fast.
BRODY: I'm gonna need to see a replay on that!
DESCRIPTION: Brody replays the video. In the video, in slow motion, part of the R.O.V. implodes and a splash of water sprays across the R.O.V. camera.
[Upbeat music plays]
[Title] Trading Skills.
[Gentle music plays]
DESCRIPTION: Brody leans against an R.O.V. on a workbench.
BRODY: Consider the R.O.V. When did humans first bring the machine to life? And when did they teach it how to swim? Come with me on a deep dive on the history of the R.O.V. and its manufacturers.
DESCRIPTION: Brody pats the R.O.V. and steps away. In black and white, Akeylah works on a machine in a factory wearing a t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up partway.
BRODY NARRATING: In the 1950s, renegade military engineers made custom machines for experiments offshore.
DESCRIPTION: In colour, in a lab, Akeylah holds a small robot. She wears glasses and a lab coat and scratches her chin.
BRODY NARRATING: In the 1970s and 80s, scientific institutions like the University of Waterloo relied on those wild engineers' innovations to discover unexplored parts of bodies of water, like the Great Lakes.
DESCRIPTION: A map shows Lake Huron, Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. Akeylah shrugs and drops the robot.
[Splashing]
DEFINITION: Akeylah tightens screws on machine parts on a factory production line. She wears a hard hat and a plaid shirt over a white T-shirt.
BRODY NARRATING: By the turn of the 21st century, as industries in need of R.O.V. s multiplied, engineers were responsible for multiplying the machines to meet the need.
DESCRIPTION: Akeylah controls an R.O.V. at the bottom of a body of murky water with a controller.
BRODY NARRATING: Nowadays, manufacturing engineers in the R.O.V. world combine digital advancements and state-of-the-art camera technology, but still rely on custom tactics to get the job done.
[Gentle upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: At the Deep Trekker workshop, a poster above the large pool reads, Exploring New Worlds.
BRODY NARRATING: With our testing complete, it was time for the R.O.V. to take its first dip in the tank to see how it works.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda looks at Brody through the R.O.V. camera feed on the R.O.V. controller.
AMANDA: All right, Brody, we're going to lift this into the water. If I can get you to grab at the back here with both hands. And then we're going to lift it onto that railing.
BRODY: All right.
DESCRIPTION: Brody and Amanda pick up the R.O.V.
AMANDA: So we're going to go onto this platform. Get it up here.
DESCRIPTION: Brody and Amanda step onto a platform and lift the R.O.V. onto the edge of the pool. They stand behind the R.O.V.
BRODY AND AMANDA: Three, two, one. Deploy.
DESCRIPTION: Brody and Amanda gently push the R.O.V. into the water, and it sinks to the bottom of the pool.
[Splashing]
BRODY: Whoa.
AMANDA: Whoo!
DESCRIPTION: Amanda grabs the controller.
AMANDA: So now it's rotating around.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda pushes a joystick, and the R.O.V. spins around.
BRODY: Whoa, that's quick.
AMANDA: And I can bring it up.
DESCRIPTION: The R.O.V. rises to the surface of the water. Amanda pushes a joystick, and the R.O.V. sinks back down to the bottom of the pool.
[Splashing]
DESCRIPTION: Amanda drives the R.O.V. around the pool.
BRODY: Whoa!
DESCRIPTION: The R.O.V. moves quickly through the water.
BRODY: Kind of like a video game.
AMADNA: It's really fun.
BRODY: Can I try?
AMANDA: Of course. Let me show you the controls. In order to go up and down in the water, you're going to use the right joystick.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda pushes the right joystick down, and the R.O.V. rises.
AMANDA: It's going to be the opposite. When you go down, it's going to come up. And then when you go up, it's going to go down.
DESCRIPTION: The R.O.V. sinks.
AMANDA: To turn the R.O.V., you're going to turn the joystick right and left, and then forward and backward.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda steers the R.O.V. with the left joystick.
BRODY: Cool.
AMANDA: You want to give it a shot?
BRODY: Yeah!
AMANDA: All righty. Careful of the walls.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda hands Brody the controller. Brody turns the R.O.V.
[Brody singing a tune]
[Brody and Amanda laughing]
DESCRIPTION: Brody raises the R.O.V., and it breaks through the surface of the water.
[Splashing]
AMANDA: So now we're going to try and use the grabber. To open and close, you have the left joystick. To rotate it, you have the right joystick. And you can move the camera head up and down.
DESCRIPTION: The R.O.V. claw-like grabber opens, closes, and rotates counterclockwise.
BRODY: What do people use R.O.V.s for?
AMANDA: For inspecting fish nets, for fish farming. We use them for studying marine life. Send them to places where it's really unsafe for human divers to go down to.
BRODY: Cool.
AMANDA: All right. Why don't we put this grabber to use and try to catch some rings?
DESCRIPTION: Amanda tosses a yellow dive ring into the pool, and it sinks to the bottom.
[Splashing]
BRODY: Hello.
AMANDA: You see it?
BRODY: Yeah.
DESCRIPTION: Brody looks at the yellow ring through the R.O.V. camera feed and adjusts the controls.
AMANDA: Oh, you got it lined up.
DESCRIPTION: Brody grabs the yellow ring with the R.O.V. grabber. He looks in the water and spots the ring in the grabber.
AMANDA: Amazing.
DESCRIPTION: The R.O.V. returns to the surface of the water, and Brody looks at himself through the camera feed.
AMANDA: Good job, Brody.
BRODY: I'll take that.
DESCRIPTION: Brody takes the yellow ring from the R.O.V. grabber and sets it down on the edge of the pool.
BRODY: High-five.
DESCRIPTION: Brody high-gives the R.O.V. grabber.
[Amanda laughing]
[Upbeat music plays]
[Title] Trading Skills.
[Gentle upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: Back at the Skills Space, Brody stands behind the worktable with Akeylah. Items, including a set of keys, a rock, a rubber duck, plastic lids and a leafy plant are laid out across the table.
BRODY: Not only did I find my keys, I also cleaned up the swamp a bit. And I think I may have discovered a new species of swamp plant. Also...
DESCRIPTION: Brody picks up the rock.
BRODY: I got a really cool rock.
AKEYLAH: That is a really cool rock. But wait, if you used Amanda's R.O.V. to get all this stuff, why are you still wearing your flippers?
BRODY: Oh, these?
DESCRIPTION: Brody walks out from behind the table in his flippers.
BRODY: I just think they're kind of comfy.
AKLEYLAH: Thanks for going to the depths of the unknown with us to learn about R.O.V. manufacturing engineers.
BRODY: Maybe the next one will take you to the top. Or the bottom of the ocean. Or a pool. Or a lake. Or a swamp.
DESCRIPTION: Brody knits his brow.
BRODY: Maybe even a puddle.
[Akeylah softly laughing]
Akeylah: Bye.
BRODY: Bye.
DESCRIPTION: Akeylah and Brody smile and wave. They look at the various items from the bottom of the swamp.
[Cheerful music plays]
[End credits] Hosts: Brody Agmon, Akeylah James. Tradesperson: Amanda Logiudice. Written and directed by Emma Fox. Produced by Francis Mitchell, Johnny Mitchell, David Mitchell. Executive Producer Thomas Kritsch. Casting director Carly Granovsky. Education consultant Sara Fewson. Produced in association with t.v.o. kids. Logo: Riverbank Pictures. Copyright 2026 Riverbank Pictures.
Descriptive Transcript
[Bright music plays]
A child says, WHEE!
[Logo] “t.v.o kids original.” The animated multicoloured logo bounces onto a white background. The word "kids" has an eye in the orange letter "d" and a smile in the lime green letter "s".
[Child giggling]
[Upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: Gears turn on a blueprint.
[Opening credits] T.V.O. kids presents.
DESCRIPTION: Akeylah, a girl with long black hair in tight braids, is wearing a pink plaid button-down shirt. Akeylah stands beside Brody, a boy with short, curly brown hair, wearing a long-sleeved brown shirt.
BRODY AND AKEYLAH: Welcome to Trading Skills!
DESCRIPTION: Akeylah and Brody cross their arms and stand back to back.
AKEYLAH: The show where we take turns…
BRODY: …trying a skilled trade.
AKEYLAH: I'm Akeylah.
BRODY: I’m Brody.
AKEYLAH: A skilled trade is a job that requires a special skill.
DESCRIPTION: Videos show Akeylah and Brody trying different skilled trades. Brody examines a dog and controls an underwater remotely operated vehicle. Akeylah works in a recording studio and a salon and examines a car engine.
BRODY AND AKEYLAH: There are lots of skill trades.
BRODY: And you might find the perfect trade for you!
AKEYLAH: Maybe there's a trade that could change your life.
BRODY: So come with us into the trades.
BRODY AND AKEYLAH: On Trading Skills!
[Title] Trading Skills.
[Gentle upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: In the Skills Space, Brody lies on the worktable wearing swim flippers and a snorkelling mask, a mustard-coloured t-shirt over a white long-sleeved shirt and blue jeans. Various tools hang on the back wall. An L.E.D. sign featuring a screwdriver and a wrench shines bright on the wall. Hard hats hang above. Akeylah sits at the bottom of the loft stairs while reading a book. She wears a pink and plaid button-down shirt and jeans.
AKEYLAH: Today in the Skills Space, I'm giving Brody some space. He went on a walk earlier today and dropped his house keys.
BRODY: Yeah, and in the worst place ever.
AKEYLAH: The swamp.
BRODY: I know what you're thinking.
DESCRIPTION: Brody sits up and takes off his snorkelling mask.
BRODY: Brody has all his snorkel gear on. Why doesn't he just go get those keys? Well, I thought that too. Until I remembered…
AKEYLAH: He's afraid of the swamp.
BRODY: If only there was a way for me to get into the swamp without having to...
AKEYLAH AND BRODY: Get into the swamp?
BRODY: Well, see you soon. Hopefully.
AKEYLAH: Hold on. I'm reading that there's a manufacturing engineer named Amanda. She makes these cool robots that can go underwater and even grab things.
DESCRIPTION: In a workshop, Robotics Manufacturing Engineer Amanda Logiudice leans against a remotely operated vehicle. Amanda has long brown hair and glasses and wears a navy zipper sweater over a blue T-shirt.
AKEYLAH: Brody, I think this is the key to your conundrum.
BRODY: What about my keys? All I heard was robots. Don't wait up.
DESCRIPTION: Brody climbs off the table.
AKEYLAH: Bye.
DESCRIPTION: Brody waddles across the Skills Space in his flippers. Akeylah returns to her book.
[Upbeat music plays]
[Title] Trading Skills.
[Gentle upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: Brody walks into a building with a sign that reads, Deep Trekker. He wears a blue pullover hooded sweater.
BRODY NARRATING: I trekked my way to Deep Trekker Inc. in Kitchener, Ontario, to learn all about underwater robots.
DESCRIPTION: In the Deep Trekker workshop, Brody looks around. He walks past a bearded man working at a counter with a variety of tools.
BRODY: This place is huge. Awesome.
[Whirring]
DESCRIPTION: A robot on four wheels connected to a cable slowly rolls up to Brody.
BRODY: Whoa, it's a robot.
DESCRIPTION: Brody kneels in front of the robot.
BRODY: Oh, hey there. I'm looking for Amanda. Does she work here?
[Robots whirring and beeping]
BRODY: I see. I don't speak robot.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda steps out from behind a storage shelf. She walks up to the robot, and Brody stands.
AMANDA: Hey, Brody, that's okay. English works really well around here.
BRODY: Hi, Amanda. Who's this little guy?
AMANDA: So this little guy is an R.O.V. or remotely operated vehicle. And this one is a pipe crawler. So it's designed to go underwater.
BRODY: Fascinating. And you build them?
AMANDA: I do. As a manufacturing engineer, I help with the designing, the building, and the testing of the R.O.V.s before they're shipped out to customers. If you're interested, I can show you more.
BRODY: You bet I am! After you, Mr. Crawler.
DESCRIPTION: The pipe crawler R.O.V. turns around and slowly rolls around the storage shelf. Brody and Amanda follow.
[Upbeat music plays]
[Title] Trading Spaces.
[Gentle upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: In another part of the workshop, Amanda leads Brody to a table of R.O.V.s in front of a large pool.
AMANDA: Brody, everything you see on this table is an R.O.V., and they come in a lot of different shapes and sizes.
BRODY: They all look great, but how do they work underwater?
AMANDA: The really cool thing is that these are fully sealed and watertight. Nothing can get in there. No water, no fluid. Then, we hook up the R.O.V. to this nifty tether here, and it gets controlled using this controller.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda pulls a yellow tether from a cable reel and grabs a remote from the table.
AMANDA: To move around and swim, it has thrusters.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda points to one of the larger R.O.V.s on the table.
AMANDA: So there's two in the front, two in the back, and two at the top here. And then to see and get your live feed onto the controller, you have a camera that you can rotate up and down, and you can also grab things underwater too, using this grabber.
BRODY: Nice to meet you.
DESCRIPTION: Brody shakes hands with the R.O.V. via its claw-like grabber.
[Upbeat music plays]
[Title] Trading Skills.
[Gentle upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: Elsewhere in the workshop, Brody follows Amanda over to a workbench.
BRODY NARRATING: Next, we needed to learn the nuts and bolts of robot making.
AMANDA: So, Brody, this bench is set up for an R.O.V. repair where we use special tools called fixtures and jigs to help build parts of an R.O.V., kind of like this thruster, which helps the R.O.V. move.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda hands Brody an R.O.V. propeller-like thruster and turns to a laptop.
AMANDA: So we start off with a computer-aided design model, which then gets made into an actual fixture, like this one. And this one was difficult to use.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda picks up the fixture, a square-shaped object with a circular carving in the centre.
AMANDA: The new version has a nice guide and is a lot easier for our builders to use and assemble thrusters with.
BRODY: So you basically invent tools.
AMANDA: That's right. So let's do a repair.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda picks up a thruster dangling off an R.O.V. by a cable.
AMANDA: We already have a thruster that is connected, but this is kind of useless if it's just floating around in the air. So we want the thruster to be put back onto the R.O.V. We're going to guide that notch at the back.
DESCRIPTION: Brody pushes the thruster into a thruster-shaped hole in the R.O.V.
AMANDA: There we go. Push it and wiggle it down just so you get it into the foam of the R.O.V.
DESCRIPTION: Brody wiggles the thruster further into the R.O.V.
AMANDA: We're gonna take two screws. You're gonna put them in the screw holes that you see on the thruster.
BRODY: Okay.
DESCRIPTION: Brody slides screws into screw holes on the thruster.
AMANDA: Great job.
BRODY: Two.
AMANDA: And now you use the screwdriver to tighten down the screws.
DESCRIPTION: Brody tightens the screws with a screwdriver.
BRODY: Done.
AMANDA: Awesome.
DESCRIPTION: Later, the R.O.V sits upright on the workbench.
AMANDA: Now it's time to make sure that all of the thrusters work. We're going to take the controller. Can you do the honours? Run the thrusters by moving the right-hand and the left-hand joysticks for me. Doesn't matter what direction.
DESCRIPTION: Brody takes the R.O.V. controller from Amanda.
BRODY: Oh, yeah. All right. Propellers, propel!
DESCRIPTION: Brody moves the joysticks on the controller, and the thruster propellers on the R.O.V. power on.
[Thruster whirring]
AMANDA: That's great! It looks like they're repaired.
BRODY: You feel better?
DESCRIPTION: Brody looks at the R.O.V. and smiles. The front of the R.O.V., with the camera, tilts up and down.
[R.O.V. whirring]
AMANDA: I think that's a yes.
BRODY: Yeah!
[Upbeat music plays]
[Title] Trading Skills.
[Gentle upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: At another workbench, Brody and Amanda sit on stools with bottles of water.
BRODY NARRATING: With our R.O.V. assembled, I had a chance to catch up with Amanda.
DESCRIPTION: Brody adjusts his seat. Amanda smiles.
BRODY: How'd you get into being a manufacturing engineer?
AMANDA: In high school, actually, I was on a robotics team where I was exposed to how to design and build robots out of the water. And that really drew me into wanting to study engineering. And I was able to get this job through one of my professors finding a job posting for a manufacturing engineer here at Deep Trekker. And I applied immediately because underwater robots is super cool.
BRODY: What do you love about what you do?
AMANDA: No day is the same. Every day, something new comes up. There are new projects, new problems to solve. So I really like how there's always some sort of action going on. And I get to work a lot between different departments at Deep Trekker with our mechanical designers, our hardware designers, and I work very closely with our production builders, who do a fantastic job here.
BRODY: Could you tell me some steps I can take to do what you're doing?
AMANDA: So in high school, I'd highly recommend joining any technology or robotics teams that will get you some really good exposure. Taking a bunch of courses like computer engineering, computer science, technology courses in high school, and that will put you into a really good place for when you apply for engineering programs at various universities and colleges in the province.
BRODY: That all sounds great. So what do we do next?
AMANDA: It's off to the pressure tanks.
BRODY: Let's go!
[Upbeat music plays]
[Title] Trading Skills.
[Gentle upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: Amanda leads Brody over to a large circular tank of water.
BRODY: Whoa, what does this big thing do?
AMANDA: So this is a pressure tank. So every fully built R.O.V. needs to get pressure tested. We need to put it in the tank and go through a pressure test.
DESCRIPTION: Two people put an R.O.V. into the pressure tank. A man in a grey hooded pullover sweater lowers the lid of the tank over bolts with a remote. He bolts the lid to the tank with a power wrench, then turns a valve.
[Nuts and bolts clanking]
AMANDA: Once it starts pressurizing, there is a screen on the wall that'll show you what the pressure is at in the tank. You can see on the controllers the live video feed from the R.O.V. inside of the tank. When these R.O.V. s swim really deep down into the ocean and experience a lot of high pressure, we want to make sure that they don't leak, they don't break, or at the very worst, they don't have an implosion.
BRODY: Implosion?!
AMANDA: Yes, so we don't want them caving in on themselves.
BRODY: I've got to see that.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda and Brody walk over to a laptop.
AMANDA: This is an implosion.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda plays a video from an R.O.V. in the pressure tank. In the video, water splashes.
AMANDA: Did you catch that? That happened really fast.
BRODY: I'm gonna need to see a replay on that!
DESCRIPTION: Brody replays the video. In the video, in slow motion, part of the R.O.V. implodes and a splash of water sprays across the R.O.V. camera.
[Upbeat music plays]
[Title] Trading Skills.
[Gentle music plays]
DESCRIPTION: Brody leans against an R.O.V. on a workbench.
BRODY: Consider the R.O.V. When did humans first bring the machine to life? And when did they teach it how to swim? Come with me on a deep dive on the history of the R.O.V. and its manufacturers.
DESCRIPTION: Brody pats the R.O.V. and steps away. In black and white, Akeylah works on a machine in a factory wearing a t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up partway.
BRODY NARRATING: In the 1950s, renegade military engineers made custom machines for experiments offshore.
DESCRIPTION: In colour, in a lab, Akeylah holds a small robot. She wears glasses and a lab coat and scratches her chin.
BRODY NARRATING: In the 1970s and 80s, scientific institutions like the University of Waterloo relied on those wild engineers' innovations to discover unexplored parts of bodies of water, like the Great Lakes.
DESCRIPTION: A map shows Lake Huron, Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. Akeylah shrugs and drops the robot.
[Splashing]
DEFINITION: Akeylah tightens screws on machine parts on a factory production line. She wears a hard hat and a plaid shirt over a white T-shirt.
BRODY NARRATING: By the turn of the 21st century, as industries in need of R.O.V. s multiplied, engineers were responsible for multiplying the machines to meet the need.
DESCRIPTION: Akeylah controls an R.O.V. at the bottom of a body of murky water with a controller.
BRODY NARRATING: Nowadays, manufacturing engineers in the R.O.V. world combine digital advancements and state-of-the-art camera technology, but still rely on custom tactics to get the job done.
[Gentle upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: At the Deep Trekker workshop, a poster above the large pool reads, Exploring New Worlds.
BRODY NARRATING: With our testing complete, it was time for the R.O.V. to take its first dip in the tank to see how it works.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda looks at Brody through the R.O.V. camera feed on the R.O.V. controller.
AMANDA: All right, Brody, we're going to lift this into the water. If I can get you to grab at the back here with both hands. And then we're going to lift it onto that railing.
BRODY: All right.
DESCRIPTION: Brody and Amanda pick up the R.O.V.
AMANDA: So we're going to go onto this platform. Get it up here.
DESCRIPTION: Brody and Amanda step onto a platform and lift the R.O.V. onto the edge of the pool. They stand behind the R.O.V.
BRODY AND AMANDA: Three, two, one. Deploy.
DESCRIPTION: Brody and Amanda gently push the R.O.V. into the water, and it sinks to the bottom of the pool.
[Splashing]
BRODY: Whoa.
AMANDA: Whoo!
DESCRIPTION: Amanda grabs the controller.
AMANDA: So now it's rotating around.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda pushes a joystick, and the R.O.V. spins around.
BRODY: Whoa, that's quick.
AMANDA: And I can bring it up.
DESCRIPTION: The R.O.V. rises to the surface of the water. Amanda pushes a joystick, and the R.O.V. sinks back down to the bottom of the pool.
[Splashing]
DESCRIPTION: Amanda drives the R.O.V. around the pool.
BRODY: Whoa!
DESCRIPTION: The R.O.V. moves quickly through the water.
BRODY: Kind of like a video game.
AMADNA: It's really fun.
BRODY: Can I try?
AMANDA: Of course. Let me show you the controls. In order to go up and down in the water, you're going to use the right joystick.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda pushes the right joystick down, and the R.O.V. rises.
AMANDA: It's going to be the opposite. When you go down, it's going to come up. And then when you go up, it's going to go down.
DESCRIPTION: The R.O.V. sinks.
AMANDA: To turn the R.O.V., you're going to turn the joystick right and left, and then forward and backward.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda steers the R.O.V. with the left joystick.
BRODY: Cool.
AMANDA: You want to give it a shot?
BRODY: Yeah!
AMANDA: All righty. Careful of the walls.
DESCRIPTION: Amanda hands Brody the controller. Brody turns the R.O.V.
[Brody singing a tune]
[Brody and Amanda laughing]
DESCRIPTION: Brody raises the R.O.V., and it breaks through the surface of the water.
[Splashing]
AMANDA: So now we're going to try and use the grabber. To open and close, you have the left joystick. To rotate it, you have the right joystick. And you can move the camera head up and down.
DESCRIPTION: The R.O.V. claw-like grabber opens, closes, and rotates counterclockwise.
BRODY: What do people use R.O.V.s for?
AMANDA: For inspecting fish nets, for fish farming. We use them for studying marine life. Send them to places where it's really unsafe for human divers to go down to.
BRODY: Cool.
AMANDA: All right. Why don't we put this grabber to use and try to catch some rings?
DESCRIPTION: Amanda tosses a yellow dive ring into the pool, and it sinks to the bottom.
[Splashing]
BRODY: Hello.
AMANDA: You see it?
BRODY: Yeah.
DESCRIPTION: Brody looks at the yellow ring through the R.O.V. camera feed and adjusts the controls.
AMANDA: Oh, you got it lined up.
DESCRIPTION: Brody grabs the yellow ring with the R.O.V. grabber. He looks in the water and spots the ring in the grabber.
AMANDA: Amazing.
DESCRIPTION: The R.O.V. returns to the surface of the water, and Brody looks at himself through the camera feed.
AMANDA: Good job, Brody.
BRODY: I'll take that.
DESCRIPTION: Brody takes the yellow ring from the R.O.V. grabber and sets it down on the edge of the pool.
BRODY: High-five.
DESCRIPTION: Brody high-gives the R.O.V. grabber.
[Amanda laughing]
[Upbeat music plays]
[Title] Trading Skills.
[Gentle upbeat music plays]
DESCRIPTION: Back at the Skills Space, Brody stands behind the worktable with Akeylah. Items, including a set of keys, a rock, a rubber duck, plastic lids and a leafy plant are laid out across the table.
BRODY: Not only did I find my keys, I also cleaned up the swamp a bit. And I think I may have discovered a new species of swamp plant. Also...
DESCRIPTION: Brody picks up the rock.
BRODY: I got a really cool rock.
AKEYLAH: That is a really cool rock. But wait, if you used Amanda's R.O.V. to get all this stuff, why are you still wearing your flippers?
BRODY: Oh, these?
DESCRIPTION: Brody walks out from behind the table in his flippers.
BRODY: I just think they're kind of comfy.
AKLEYLAH: Thanks for going to the depths of the unknown with us to learn about R.O.V. manufacturing engineers.
BRODY: Maybe the next one will take you to the top. Or the bottom of the ocean. Or a pool. Or a lake. Or a swamp.
DESCRIPTION: Brody knits his brow.
BRODY: Maybe even a puddle.
[Akeylah softly laughing]
Akeylah: Bye.
BRODY: Bye.
DESCRIPTION: Akeylah and Brody smile and wave. They look at the various items from the bottom of the swamp.
[Cheerful music plays]
[End credits] Hosts: Brody Agmon, Akeylah James. Tradesperson: Amanda Logiudice. Written and directed by Emma Fox. Produced by Francis Mitchell, Johnny Mitchell, David Mitchell. Executive Producer Thomas Kritsch. Casting director Carly Granovsky. Education consultant Sara Fewson. Produced in association with t.v.o. kids. Logo: Riverbank Pictures. Copyright 2026 Riverbank Pictures.
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