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Robots exhibition
This Robot at MIT can mimic dozens of facial expressions. MATTHEW
In the morning we met up with Dad's high school friend Stu and his son Will. We visted Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) which is a very famous technical college. Stu studied there and says its better than Harvard University the other famous University in Boston. We saw the Musuem and they had a robot exhibition. There was one robot there which copies and responds to your emotions, called the Kismet robot. It is run by fifteen computers that allow the robot to notice its environment, understand it and react to it. There were other robots that you could make move but they were doing weird things, for instance a robot that had a chicken wishbone pulling it as it walked around - I think this was called kinetic sculptures. There were also some amazing optical illusions and 3D pictures.
Then we went to Harvard University where a lot of famous people went, like Steve Jobs, John F Kennedy, the Unibomber (who was very good at maths and was accepted to Uni at 15) and Matt Damon. We went on a tour of Harvard, our tour guide told us about the library which was huge. It was donated
Not really Mr Harvard
No one knows what Mr Harvard looked like. He was also not the founder of the University but the funder. by a women who lost her son on the Titanic and she paid $3 million to have it rebuilt and renamed for her son but because the Uni was so quick to change the name it already had she got suspicious and put three conditions on the donation after she gave them the money to build the building. These were, firstly no brick or stone shall ever be removed from the building, secondly they had to build a secret reading room for the ghost of her son and thirdly everyone graduating from Harvard had to learn to swim because she claimed if her son and known how to swim he would have survived on the Titanic (not realising the ship dragged everyone down when it sank). The woman's son collected rare books and his copy of the Gutenberg Bible which was the first printed book is held at the University. A few decades later the University wanted to expand the library but they couldn't go up, back or across so they went down, eight stories in fact. It stretches under most of the university.
We then saw a statute of John Harvard which has three lies in it. It
Harvard Library
The library was built by a sponsor whose son died on the Titanic. It goes 8 levels underground says John Harvard, Founder, 1638 but all of this information is incorrect. No-one knows what John Harvard looked like because the statute was built 100 years later, John Harvard was not the founder, he just gave them a lot of money and they renamed the university in his honour and it was founded in 1636. The "Statute of Three Lies" is one of the most photographed statutes in the world and its boots are all shiny from where people rub it for good luck.
Then we went to see where the first shots were fired in the War of Independence at Lexington on 19 April 1775 which is also the area where Stu lived. Then we went for dinner and played a game of wizzball with Will. Its kind of like backyard cricket version of baseball. I was wearing light coloured jeans and the ground was muddy. Guess what happened next....
CHRIS
Today we saw Stu and William and we went to a robot museum where we saw real robots. There was a button where if you pressed it the robots came to life and moved. After that we went to Harvard University which was given to
Typical North American Street
The houses looked the same as they do on television the Government and America by John Harvard but there's a statute of John Harvard outside the school which had three main problems, They got the date on the statute wrong, he was not the founder and they didn't know what he looked like because it was made 104 years after he died. The university is 142 acres in size and I also saw my first squirrel there. I bought a key ring at the shop that was three dollars and it says I Love Harvard.
We went to have Starbucks Coffee and we got a ricebubble cake which had marshmallows in it. Then we went to Stu's house and we saw is wife and his 16 year old brother and we played a game of softball out their backyard.
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Grandma
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Love the photos!
Wow! You've done and seen a lot in the US. It was great to see photos of you both.