Joe has an eventful day, and so does Jo, our robot
Our son Joe presented his first speech as junior school captain to 700 grade 9 and 10 students at Melbourne High today which was following at lunchtime by a school evacuation when an angry man confronted teachers.
All solved with Police taking the person away… who according to local sources (Joe) was apparently a person not associated with the school and affected by something when the episode occurred.
The event had nothing to do with the content of Joe’s speech which I understand was well received. ?
Meanwhile, back in Darwin… Penny and I, in our role as Robot Handlers were on the job in Darwin’s rural area…
Jo, our NAO robot made a visit to Girraween Primary, Middle Point Primary and Berry Springs Primary today. The students were shown programming and many posed for selfies with Jo as well as creating programs on small sphero robots . What a great bunch of polite inquisitive students from all schools… Big thanks to the schools for hosting us. We will be back for more workshops.
Jo the NAO robot is visiting schools all over the NT delivering introductory STEM workshops and I believe these visits are leaving a memory with these students that they will cherish up until and beyond the day their own children come home from school and say “Guess what we saw at school today?”
There were many lovely interactions today… I must share two. While at Berry Springs Primary, a young grade four student who had participated in one of our visits to the Palmerston Library remembered the story of Jo who broke her finger and had to be sent back to Paris. Luckily Luke (Jo’s cousin) was visiting from Geelong and was able to stand in. The humanised story (in this case a real story) about a robot has remained with this student and I suspect others.
The other story is that on our return from the schools we had to stop in for lunch which we had missed. It was after school hours by this time. While we lined up at Coolalinga to order, Evan, Girraween Primary student came up to us recognising us from the morning. He must have been in grade 3 or 4. He chatted about how much he had enjoyed assembly and then thanked us for bringing Jo out the school.
We have a number of great photos and videos, but I am only using an abstract rendering of photo of one of the events which unfortunately in ensuring their privacy also masks their smiles, wonderment and awe. I understand that some schools have their own FaceBook page and there certainly were a lot of pictures being taken.
The wonderful manners of all the students from all the schools and their curiosity made this one of the best work days I have had in a long time. Massive credit to Mums and Dads, Teachers and Carers and of course to the students themselves. I wish Jo the robot was as well behaved sometimes. ?
