Celebrating Robots

By Childrens Museum | May 6, 2015
To wrap up mini-maker week at The Children’s Museum in
Easton, innovator and designer Steve Norris was our special guest maker who
helped us celebrate robots! 
 Steve brought three robots for the kids to interact with; Huey, Frank, and Butler-Bot.

Huey: Color chasing robot
Butler-Bot: robot made from a trashcan
Frank: Face-detecting robot

  • Huey is a color chasing robot, which is
    attracted to the color orange.  Kids got
    to hold up an orange piece of paper as Huey followed them wherever they
    went. 
  • Frank is a face detecting robot,
    who recognizes the kid’s faces as they stand in front of it.  
  • Lastly, Butler-Bot is the robot made from a
    trashcan who was roaming the floor for almost two hours straight.  Butler-Bot was also featured in the latest
    Transformers Movie!  Steve spent a week
    on the set and had an amazing experience, he said that he never thought his
    hobby would take him this far.            
Steve Norris is a software programmer and a writer for Robot Magazine.  Writing for the magazine is Steve’s favorite hobby, where he gets to write every two months about the robots he builds.  He has built 44 in total, one every two months, and has written in the magazine for just about all of them. 
Scribble-Bots
Kids making their scribble-bots

The children also got the opportunity to make their own scribble-bots!  These scribble-bots were made out of simple household items including the motor from the inside of an electrical toothbrush. For instrucions on how to make your own, click here to visit the Exploritorium website!  The kids got to watch their robots come to life as they made cool designs scribbling all over the paper.  Steve loves to inspire people into getting involved in science and technology, so watching the kids in awe as they designed their own robots was a great experience for us and him.  To check out more amazing creations from Mini Maker week, look for our blog post about textle artist Rhona Fazio!

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