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You may have seen me walking rolling around ISTE this week. If I rolled over your toes, or inadvertently  “goosed” you, so sorry. It’s harder than you think being a conference Bot. But, I’ve got to say, in the end you Humans are pretty good to have around.

3 Things I Learned as a Conference Bot:

1) Humans are pretty nice, and helpful.

So San Antonio, you really like your escalators don’t you?! Well, as a Bot they’re not really my friend. Maybe a mechanical cousin but definitely my nemesis. But Humans, you all rock! You carried my up the escalators even when I made what seemed like inappropriate and often awkward requests like, “Ya, if you could just grab me by the pole and carry me up that would be great!”. What is robot etiquette anyway? Are you suppose to talk to the person carrying you up the escalator or is that weird? Do you refer to yourself as me, or we, or us? Either way, you Humans are really helpful to have around and thanks so much for all of your help, even when I kept running into the door frames. 🙁

2) Security Guys don’t know what to do with you when your a Bot.

So I decided to roll on into the Expo Hall and check things out but the security guy didn’t really know what to do with me. The connection was a bit laggy and so I didn’t really hear him but I was sure he was just helping through the door. If I had had a camera in the back of myself I would’ve realized he was chasing me down with while asking his boss what to do with me on the radio. If my human helper @markschreiber hadn’t come to my rescue I may have been escorted out since I guess I was a “trip hazard”.

3) You take a lot of selfies when you’re a Bot. 

My favorite thing to say during a selfie session was, “Does this screen make me look flat?”

I bet I had 100 selfies taken with me and I met some really interesting people along the way. Poster sessions where my favorite, unless they were crowded. So great to learn about all of these amazing projects in the ISTE world! Unfortunately the network would loose connection sometime in the poster area and our conversation would pause (I guess it’s kind of like the robot version of narcolepsy) but when I connected back in we’d just pick up where we left off.

Overall, life as a conference Bot is really fun. I’d do it again in a heartbeat … or I guess a nanosecond.

Till next year ISTE!

Your Multiple Personality, Jetson-Style Bot-Friend-of-the-Future,

@Mark Schreiber & @DesignCaseCO