Junior Fobotologists

It’s been rather stressful here at Fobot World Headquarters lately.  Many of you will remember Phil (Cheap Fobotics Officer and my husband) from the art fairs we’ve attended.  Phil generally sits at the front of the booth, where most people assume he’s the artist.  He never fails to inform him that no, he’s not the artist, he’s just the eye candy.  And if you read my last post, you may remember that he was suffering from a truly horrific infection in his leg, which only last week has FINALLY been diagnosed as MRSA.  If you don’t know what a MRSA infection is, look it up–and I swear, you’ll start washing your hands (hell, your entire body) every ten minutes.  But that’s not the latest issue.  No, poor Phil was admitted to the hospital last week not for that, but for what turned out to be a large kidney stone.  This thing had its own zip code.  But here’s the good(?) news; if it were not for the kidney stone, we might never have known about the tumor on his OTHER kidney until it was too late.  As it is, it’s small, self-contained, and can be surgically removed fairly easily once he heals from everything else.  Did I mention I’ve been a little stressed lately?

So in the middle of all this drama, I get an email that just makes my entire year.  It was from a teacher, and it read;

Amy:
I had the pleasure of meeting you with a few of my middle school students this summer at the Cherry Creek Arts Festival in Denver over the 4th of July weekend.  We were one of the lucky schools that was able to participate in the Janus Student Art Buying Program that weekend.  We were amazed with your artwork and I loved the fact that they all were named and had hearts!

I was so inspired by your fantastic “fobots” that I decided to make it one of my art projects.  I collect junk and little pieces of ‘this and that’ all of the time, so I asked my students to bring in a soup can as their body (or anything else that inspired them for the ‘trunk’ of their robot) and a small baggy of junk to use, share, or to replenish my so-called, “junk buffet” of fun items to use.  The students used hot glue guns to put their robots together and on their nametags, they were to name their robot as you do and assign each of their personalities some hobbies too!  Some of our robots are friends or enemies or siblings too!

I wanted to share a few of the photos I took of their amazing works.  Thank you so much, the students absolutely LOVED this project so much and are so proud of their creations.

-Aaryn Novy
Visual Arts Teacher
Columbia Middle School

Is that great or what?  I don’t have room to post all of the pictures they sent, but I’ve put together a few of my favorites. Every single one made me smile–it was nearly impossible to just pick a few. You may remember that I’ve been having trouble lately with some adults copying my work.  I hope they see how creative these kids are.  Every one has a unique and totally original viewpoint, inspired by the Fobots, but completely different at the same time.  Excellent work, Junior Fobotologists!  Keep those glue guns going, keep hunting for the good junk, and remember–wash those hands!