On the 10th of July, we visited the beautiful Aberystwyth public library to display our robots along side the Aber Intelligent Robotics Group as part of the ’22 Summer Reading Challenge, which was focusing on science and technology this year.
The library had a lot of space, but it was understandably filled with books and book shelves, so we asked for a couple of tables to display our robots and laptop, and we set up right inside the front revolving door. This turned out to be a great idea, as every single small person entering the library caught sight of our robots almost immediately.
We took down five of our A.R.T. I robots (one through five), Terror Ted, our Christmas Tree, our first Racing Teapot, and then two lego inspired, remotely controllable robots. The university brought along a vast array of fantastic programmable lego robots, and one of their regular entertainment robots that’s always really popular – K9.
We spent a lot of the day talking to children about what robots were for, and what they might do. About the materials we make ours from, where we get our parts from, and what code we use. This, along with the lego robots never being long on charge before they were being driven around the library again was fantastic fun! The children we spoke to were keen to ask many questions; some had experience of robotics clubs and some not, but all were inquisitive.
One of the best parts of the day for us, was seeing how young people reacted to a few of our robots and their appearances. Firstly, Terror Ted, which was built by us for Halloween and gives you an evil laugh when you put your hand near his face (Terror Ted), had mixed reactions.
He was actually renamed a couple of times in the day, and the names ranged from “Oh my goodness, the stuff of my nightmares” (he was only kidding), to Horror Teddy, to then one little person trying to pick him up constantly, convinced he was a Laser Teddy Bear. It actually made us smile so much, we’re going to start a new section on his page with the new names he is now spontaneously given when we show him to people.
The second reactions we found interesting were those of our twin robots, Aneira and Eirlys (A.R.T.I 3 & 4 respectively). We have an interesting story in its own right about why we built virtually identical twin robots, and you can read about that here (Why Build Twin Robots?), but essentially a lot of the children coming to our table were looking for us to demonstrate the bigger autonomous robots. So before we ran either Aneira or Eirlys, we asked each child to tell us which one they would prefer?
Consistently the children chose to have us demonstrate A.R.T.I 4 (Eirlys), because she had a smile (the smiley face and sad face being the only things meaningfully differentiating the two robots). Time and time again, the children coming over to us, chose the happy face. This may not be a surprise to anyone, but it proved interesting to us, given we had previously discussed this very issue, and wondered if anyone would interact with the two robots differently given they were otherwise, identical. To see it happen over, and over again was fascinating, and goes a small way to suggest that the way a robot presents, may have a significant impact on how it’s interacted with. We loved that.
We had a fantastic time, and we were thrilled with the idea that we maybe, just maybe, inspired a young person today to think more about science, engineering and technology, and their place in it.
The day for us was tiring ultimately; the trip down is a long one, over mountainous roads, and in extreme heat it can be difficult, but it is always more than worth it. We always find the Aberystwyth University Robotics Group to be really fantastic, and we look forward to future opportunities to talk with people about home education robotics/engineering.
Kepp building.
Emma
