Richard Hearn has fun with robots

My news this week is that robots are taking over the world. Well, Hove. Well our house, maybe. Actually, taking over is a bit strong. They are only three inches tall and move about a foot at a time.

You’ll have to excuse my opening. I’ve been writing this column for over three years now, so I’ve got to find an angle. This week it’s the popularity of ‘make your own wind-up robots’, bought on impulse about six weeks ago.

I settled down with The Boy and Youngest™ on one of those gloomy Saturday afternoons when everyone felt jaded and you feel you should be doing something else. If you’re a non-parent, you won’t know that the phrase: “Who wants to make their own robot?” is a guaranteed winner of a question. It’s not often that you have the answer though.

We sat down at the table and constructed the first two robots (there are five in a pack). Essentially, each consists of a plastic wind-up mechanism, over which you fold a cardboard body, adorned with stickers you can colour in.

It was an enjoyable, calming, methodical and rewarding hour, a world of felt tips and tiny pens, stickers and serious discussions about rocket packs. Youngest™, whose speaking is coming on in leaps and bounds, did a running commentary the whole way through, comparing and contrasting his own to his brother’s robot.
When we finished, and I returned to adult chores, they spent the rest of the afternoon transporting these robots up and down the stairs, and anywhere they went. They sat like silent invaders at the dinner table. Both The Boy and Youngest™ positioned them carefully in their eyeline when they slept.

In the morning, when I came downstairs, they were both sitting on the sofa and before, “good morning” or “slept well?” The Boy asked me, “make more robots?”

So, we did. As we were visiting my parents later, up they came in the car too (that’s the robots not my parents). By now, there were five of them (I’m still talking robots, not parents) and therefore they had to have a transport system, so The Boy had carefully chosen to transport them in a brown paper bag.

That evening, Youngest™ almost crushed his robot when he fell asleep in his car seat. The Boy was very concerned. The next morning, I was woken by a rustling. It was The Boy, at 6am, taking the bag of robots back downstairs. That is why they won’t take over the world. Or even Hove – rustling gives them away.

Illustration: Paul Lewis www.pointlessrhino.com