I’m not sure what is in the water this week, but suddenly robots are making a comeback. The latest batch of robot pics comes from Petra and Eloise, who were not to be limited by our suggestion to make a robot from a teabox. No, they said, why think small when there boxes of so many shapes and sizes?
Here is Petra’s creation.
I admire the robot’s pink polka dots, its amiable expression, its arms spread wide in an endless welcoming stance. To me it says, “Hug me, and hug me right now.”
And here is the creator, joining her robot in the studio.
She strikes me as a neo-Barbara Walters, sidling up for a tell-all interview, asking her robot about its first memory, its earliest influences, its troubled adolescence, its rise to fame, its painful middle-life crisis, and its subsequent reflections on the meaning of it all. I don’t even need to watch the interview. It’s all there, the drama and the heartbreak, neatly contained in Petra’s knowing and amiable gaze.
And then we have Eloise’s robot. Also larger than life, also beautifully painted, also eager for the next embrace. I’m not sure if it’s even possible, but I might call this Robot cheerful.
Eloise herself? There is no time for frivolity for the industrious creator. Her work is deadly serious, and bound to change the world. This robot is no aimless hugger, but a solution to all our problems. Ambassador and diplomat, inventor and keeper of the peace. Eloise is presenting her work to the Nobel committee, but because she is so modest, she refuses to claim the prize for her own.
“This recognition belongs to all of us,” she says. “To my mom and dad, to the teachers who inspired me, to my incredible friends. But mostly to the robot. He’s a good robot and a remarkable mind. He just doesn’t hug, ok?”
That’s ok with me, Eloise. I’m just glad that you shared him with us. You too, Petra.
Keep them coming, I say.