Taking a break from the introductions, we have some field trip pictures! Today Rei and Asuka went to Boston's Museum of Science. They wanted to see the Star Wars exhibit... I guess they figured fighting Angels FROM outer space, fighting the Empire IN outer space - there's a certain kinship there, right? As it turned out, the focus of the exhibit was on robots. So maybe they just miss their giant fighting robots... We can't build giant robots yet, but I have the feeling that there's a certain group of people out there that are hoping that someday we can... (even tho I honestly can't imagine giant Eva-style fighting robots ever being practical for anything, really...) In the meantime, I guess the high-school-kids-who-just-happen-to-be-amazing-robot-pilots will just have to go to high school.

Since we got there a bit early, first they went to check out the main hall.

"Since when did dinosaurs wear scarves?"


"Gah! This thing is scarier than an Angel! Thank goodness it doesn't move!"


"Look - a Pinky-size Mt. Everest!"

The hightlight of the visit unexpectedly came when we discovered that Sony's QRIO robot was visiting the museum. We went to go check out the QRIO demo, and it turned out to be way cooler than the Star Wars exhibit. As cool as Star Wars was as a movie, it was way more fun to see real robots dancing than it was to see fake robots in glass exhibit boxes. Plus, QRIO is just so darn cute!! I've seen pictures, I've even seen it dancing on the internet (and in a Beck video) but somehow it was much cuter in person. I think it's because I have never heard it talk. It had such an adorable little voice! They gave it a cute little english voice, but when it was performing independently, it reverted back to it's native Japanese, and you could just about hear it saying "Wakarimashita!" and "Konnichi wa!" So cute!!

Here's Asuka checking out an inactive QRIO that was on display inside the Star Wars exhibit:


And then, here's the little guys waving good-bye to the audience at the end of their performance:


The QRIOs performed different dances of the world to show their dexterity, and then they also played soccer to show their ability to make independant judgements. After all the displays, QRIO's human spokesperson took questions from the audience. It turns out that - much like a Pinky - QRIO's favorite color is Pink!! (One of the kids in the audience wanted to know, and Mr. Spokesman said QRIO liked pink best, because even tho it had a blue and a purple ball, it liked to play with the pink one the most. That was one of the few questions where Mr. Spokesman gave QRIO a personality. Sometimes he seemed to forget his audience was mostly kids and got very scientific about his answers. But that's ok, I guess. It IS a science museum after all. But I still wonder how often in the past he has done these presentations for kids...)

And even tho I havent actually posted any Star Wars pix yet, I'm going to have to call it a night. I'll post the rest of the pix tomorrow. It's time for me to go to bed, and also my computer battery is just about to call it quits for the day too...