a mother's wisdom

Told Mum that I'd be teaching Robotics next year and she sent me the following:

From : Mom
Sent : April 21, 2007 2:08:58 PM
Subject : 10 things I know about Robots and Lego

1. They always have squeaky voices.

2. Generally they are the bad guys in movies. They develop their, always there but not allowed to be used, intelligence and then plot against their... owners. I almost said parents,hmmm.

3. I can make a Lego tower. But tell the kids that in my experience if you make the tower too high it tips over. There's probably some complicated explanation for that, but if you just don't make it so high it's ok.

4. You went to school in Grade 3 with someone who's parent helped develop the Canada Arm, which contrary to popular myth is NOT anything to do with drinking beer, which is in fact used on spaceships. See you'll do fine teaching this course!

5. Lego makes a lot of noise, so make sure the kids don't use it on wooden floors.

6. The really good pieces of Lego are like prizes in CrackerJacks. There's only one great piece per 100 regular pieces. This isn't soooo bad as long as the kids who like building towers realize that they are lucky when some other smarty-pants says they'll trade 50 pieces of Lego for that little one there.

7. I saw a robot movie.

8. I've seen a lot of episodes of StarTrek.

9. Be careful teaching about torque, that should only be used if you have a serious cut on your leg, or if you've been bitten by a snake and have to stop the poison from moving up your leg. Then, you take your bandana and tie it on your leg really, really tight. I saw it in a cowboy movie.

10. I...... uhh.... love having a daughter who couldn't build a refridgerator teaching a course on Robotics at a fancy-shmantzy American school. It sort of satisfies some cosmic sense of closure.

Love to all mum/mil

[Toronto-22-April-2007]