The early seeds of Owens Viani’s work on the issue began around 2011, when a neighbor ran over to tell her that Cooper’s hawk fledglings had drowned in his kiddie pool.

But last week, the dog turned on her, as she was getting out of a kiddie pool in the scorching heat outside her Visalia home, said her cousin Pearl Vargas.

“It wasn’t just blowing up a kiddie pool,” he said.

Right now, the machines swim in a clean 2D environment, the microrobotic equivalent of the kiddie pool, he says.

He wound up lounging in an inflatable kiddie pool for two and a half hours of filming with a snorkel, flippers, life jacket and bubble gum, contributing little in the way of conversation but much in the way of drink refills, sunscreen assistance and waterlogged ambience.