Last week Craig inspired me to do a fun visit to the girls’ school for an educational work demonstration, to show off my office’s new Boston Dynamic robot dog. The dog’s name is Aurora, named after her custom northern lights inspired skin, and will be testing out airfield wildlife mitigation in Fairbanks under a research and development project. For folks my age, the creep factor is real when you are up close and personal with such a “creature;” and at the same time it is really cool what technology can do these days.

At least ten parents have asked me questions the past few days about the visit so I thought I’d share more details on a quick blog. My colleague Ryan and I did the presentation, although most of the credit (and fun!) goes to him as our office innovator, and as someone who is great at presenting and explaining things to the younger generation. It was fun to leave the immobile visitor laying down on the floor of the gymnasium while we explained its intended use and other details about airport wildlife mitigation. The dog will have several programmed routes as well as the ability to operate by an operator, very much like a video game (according to the kids). We explained how airport sponsors try to keep birds and other wildlife off the runway and away from aircraft, especially the engines, using both lethal and nonlethal measures where approved. We purposefully started the conversation without walking it around, and answered a lot of questions. Everyone jumped when it stood up and began to walk around the room. We demonstrated how it knew to stop and walk around an obstacle or not run into the wall, using its front sensors. The kids thought that was really cool.

Ryan had one genius moment where he told a classroom of 5/6 years olds they could pet the dog, but not to click the red button. Would you like the guess what all their questions revolved around after that?! You got it. The red (reset) button.

My favorite part of this demonstration is very much the reaction of the audience. Adults and older age kids flinched far more than the younger grades, who weren’t apprehensive of the metal, headless dog walking toward them or down the hall. It goes to show that in this day and age, the girls’ age group are close to comfortable with the concept of artificial intelligence (AI), while older kids and adults are still experiencing this change in societal autonomy and not quite ready to live in that world yet. Or at least I feel that way a lot of days!

After the gym demonstration and showing a few teachers how well it goes up and down stairs (it operates like we do with bendable knees that make it more mobile), we walked it into different classrooms that might not have seen the first part. All the kids had great, inquisitive questions, and then we went to the kindergarten classroom, aka where the girls were doing stations right after the lunch hour.

I purposefully stood in the hall while Ryan walked Aurora in; no shrieks or anything! What was the first thing I did hear? One of the girls (I think Reagan but not sure) comment, hey, that is my mom’s robot dog! Mind you, I did not share I was visiting that day, assuming they would be wild if Mom was trying to present to the older kiddos. In the five minutes we spent in their classroom, Emerie barely cared enough to acknowledge it (I did get a hug) and went back to her schoolwork, while Harper and Reagan at least were semi interested. It was pretty funny.

All in all, a fun visit and I hope all the kids learned something about artificial intelligence, or wildlife mitigation at airports. Birds are bad and don’t mix with airplanes! We only caused one adult to shriek at Aurora walking around a corner, which was pretty funny. The future is pretty cool…I tell you! And I keep telling these kids mom has a fun job…some days like today!

And Craig still wants a real puppy…and now the girls want a robot puppy too. Good times.

❤