Thanks to the sculptor Pete Webster for this image of his students at Canterbury Christ Church University College. They are displaying an array of Official Robot City badges. Pete is head of the PGCSE course at Canterbury Christ Church University College teaching the Art Teachers of the future to love Robots! You can see a nice interview with Pete Webster about his work on the statue of Olympic Champion and World Record Breaker Steve Ovett at http://sussex.greatbritishlife.co.uk/article/interview-with-sculptor-pete-webster-steve-ovett-41842/

If you visit the Science Museum in London be sure to check out the shop where you can find all The Robot City Books and lots of other great Robots too!

The Robot City Website officially went live today!

Scottish Friendly Robot City Tour

In June I travelled up to Scotland to tour Robot City round schools in East and West Dunbartonshire for a week as part of the Scottish Friendly Children’s Book Tour with the Scottish Book Trust.

I decided to take with me a sketch of Curtis that I had started when I visited the Science Museum in London earlier in the year to sketch Robots and talk about Robot City in their foyer. I had only been able to do a little bit of the sketch in London and I thought it would be nice to finish it off on the Tour. You can see the how it went in a few stages here. At the end of the Tour I gave the sketch to the Scottish Book trust to say thank you for a wonderful week.

The Tour had started off waiting in the rain at Edinburgh airport for Michael Merillo and Beth Bottery to pick me up. As soon as we got going things started to brighten up. For a start they were well stocked with sweets! For the first part of the Tour we were based in beautiful Balloch on the banks of Loch Lomond. The first school we visited was nearby and just take a look at the view from Highdykes Primary school.

At each school I showed a presentation about Robot City and answered questions on it as I went along.  

The questions were thought provoking and always entertaining. After that we all got down to the serious business of drawing Robots and this for me was the most exciting part of it all. Everyone came up with exceptionally brilliant ideas. You can see some of them on one of the videos on the Links page on the Robot City Website and also on the Scottish Friendly Children’s Book Tour page.

http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/learning/scottish-friendly-childrens-book-tour/paul-collicutt

The pupils at the last school we visited on the Tour ( Craighead Primary School in Milton of Campsie ) were treated to the World Premier of the Robot City Website in a rough state. They literally fell about laughing….in a good way! Now that it is finished I hope they all like it as much as they did then.

The Best Named Robot of the Tour Award has to go to a pupil at St.Joseph’s Primary School who did this drawing and called it “Death Lightening Bolt and all different things on a Robot!” My favourite quote from a pupil was from one student at Milngavie Primary School who was overheard saying “Wow that’s the first time I’ve ever done anything for two hours and not been bored!”

I was impressed by all the students and teachers that I met on the Tour and I’d like to thank them all for making me so welcome and Beth and Mike of the Scottish Book Trust for making it all so much fun. It was for me one of the highlights of the year so far.

The schools we visited in East and West Dunbartonshire were Highdykes Primary School, Gartocharn Primary School, Whitecrook Primary School, Carleith Primary School, St Joseph's Primary School, St Andrew's Primary School, Milngavie Primary School, Colquhoun Park Primary School, Lenzie Primary School, Craighead Primary School.