The Wild Robot: Volume 1

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Roz is a robot, and is not supposed to feel emotions. Do you think she feels emotions? Give examples from the book to explain your reasoning. The first episode, themed around the subject of love, includes one example. In a scene filmed with a troop of langurs living on a temple complex in Rajasthan, a robotic camera, modelled to resemble a young monkey, is believed by the troop to be a baby that has died. Roboticists tend to develop robots under the assumption that they’ll know exactly where their robots are at any given time—clearly that’s an important capability if the robot’s job is to usefully move between specific locations. But that ability to localize generally requires the robot to have powerful sensors and a map of its environment. There are ways to wriggle out of some of these requirements: If you don’t have a map, there are methods that build a map and localize at the same time, and if you don’t have a good range sensor, visual navigation methods use just a regular RGB camera, which most robots would have anyway. Unfortunately, these alternatives to traditional localization-based navigation are either computationally expensive, not very robust, or both. In healthcare as in many industries, robots have typically been tethered to a fixed place. For example, surgical robots used in an operating room or prescription-dispensing robots used in a pharmacy. Now, robots are moving freely through hospital spaces and in the community. It’s a big leap. As we know, families come in all forms. Now that Roz has taken on the role of a mother to Brightbill, they have become like a little family. In what ways do they act like your family acts? In what ways are they different from any of the families that you know?

When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is alone on a remote, wild island. Why is she there? Where did she come from? And, most important, how will she survive in her harsh surroundings?Robots In The Wild is about creative problem solving, building epic Robot citidels, and rescuing HEARTS from the clutches of a cold, heartless universe. There are a lot of animal characters in this book, all with their own unique personalities and quirks. Choose one character who stands out above the rest, and is your favorite. Discuss why you chose this character and the special traits that make this character special to you. When Roz first arrived on the island, the animals were afraid of her and thought she was some kind of a monster. Why is this? What are some things that happened that changed their minds about Roz?

Storyboard That is an excellent tool for students to create fun and engaging projects as a culminating activity after finishing a novel. In addition to our premade activities, here are some ideas that teachers can customize and assign to students to spark creativity in individual students, pairs, or small groups for a final project. Several of these ideas include Storyboard That templates that can be printed out or copied into your teacher dashboard and assigned digitally. All final projects can be printed out, presented as a slide show, or, for an extra challenge, as an animated GIF! Roz is like a mother to many of the island’s animals, and she takes on the role of mother to a Brightbill, whose goose egg was the only survivor of a terrible accident. What do you think motherly actions look like? In what ways does Roz act motherly? Provide examples from the text.

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It’s important to think about the appropriate level of autonomy for whatever it is you want a robot to do. There’s a wide spectrum between “autonomous” and “teleoperated,” and a solution in the middle may help you get farther along another dimension that you care more about, like cost or generality. This can be an unfashionable suggestion to robotics researchers (for whom less-than-autonomous solutions can feel like defeat), but it’s better to think of it as an invitation for creativity: What new angles could you explore if you started from an 80 percent autonomy solution rather than a fully autonomous solution? Would you be able to run a system for longer, or in a place you couldn’t before? How could you sprinkle in human assistance to bridge the gap? One of the main themes of this book is friendship. Roz’s friendships with the animals were unexpected and often challenging. Choose a friendship between Roz and one of the animals and discuss it in your group. Why was it a strong friendship? What challenges did the friendship face and how were these challenges overcome? After a while, the island starts to feel like home to Roz. Why is this? What does home feel like to you? Our research suggests there will likely be sizeable hurdles for some agencies considering forays into robotics. Three-quarters of federal executives surveyed said they expect their employees would resist any near-term moves to adopt robots; 73 percent said they expect their customers would resist; and 71 percent said they expect society would resist it. In the end, we found that a preference for moving in the same direction as long as possible—a strategy we call informed direction selection—was most effective at making Kuri roam the long, wide corridors of our building.

Potential use cases and opportunities may be evident, but there can be little progress without a receptive organization. Are agencies’ cultures and leadership ready for robots? How about their stakeholders? And do they possess the skill sets needed? Storyboard That’s The Wild Robot lesson plans include vocabulary, a character map, a plot diagram for students to map out important events of The Wild Robot plot, a movie poster, and exploring The Wild Robot themes. Students will delight in creating storyboards using our very own Roz character and the adorable animals that our artists have created. An additional activity could be to have students complete The Wild Robot chapter summaries for each chapter to dig deeper into the plot of the book. Students could also create a The Wild Robot study guide or a The Wild Robot novel study for a classmate!Using one of Storyboard That’s board game templates, create a game based on the book for your classmates to play! Roz learned a lot from the animals around her. Have each group member choose an animal and describe the lessons that it taught Roz, using specific instances from the book. If applicable, include lessons that Roz taught that animal for an extra challenge. A camera disguised as a prairie dog, which captures the animals’ habit of “kissing” each other, was programmed with the ability to “jump-yip”, a leaping motion that reinforces family bonds.