Retro futuristic classroom enforcer robots

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By John Edgar Park
Posted 2009/10/22 @ 9:29 am
Category General

As an unruly second grader I often endured the chalk-throwing rage of Mrs. Seaman (*giggle*). Not much fun, but at least I wasn’t being corporally punished by these “watchful robots that rap students on the head if they lose focus or act up.”

This vision of the future, ominously entitled “The Rise of the Computerized School”, was illustrated by Shigeru Komatsuzaki for an article in a 1969 ShÅnen Sunday magazine. The “Computopia” feature predicted that by 1989 our lives would be equal parts carefree and terrifying thanks to the pervasiveness of computers, telecommuting teachers, and pugilistic enforcer robots.

[via Pink Tentacle] [Thanks, Contorto!]

BY John Edgar Park

In the Maker Shed

7 Responses to Retro futuristic classroom enforcer robots

toolboy on October 22nd, 2009 at 11:32 am said:

Excellent, can we get those at the next Maker Faire to keep the little ones captive in the Lego Gulag?

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Kurt on October 22nd, 2009 at 2:19 pm said:

If you’ll notice, he’s getting a beatin’ not for misbehaving but for answering incorrectly.

My guess is that he didn’t actually get it wrong but that it was a typo on his horribly small touch sensitive input pad.

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Svenska on October 22nd, 2009 at 2:45 pm said:

This would have been our destiny if the 60s hadn’t made us so damn squishy… Computers Banzai!!

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Anonymous on October 22nd, 2009 at 6:25 pm said:

check out the bigger head smackers suspended from the ceiling! Niiiiiiice…

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craig on October 23rd, 2009 at 7:14 am said:

WRONG! YOUR ANSWER IS IN ERROR! (whack, whack, whack)
Wow, and that concept is from MY lifetime! Don’t get me wrong, some kids deserve a swat upside the head, but in school, by a teacher, by an enforcement machine? I was always a kid who took stuff apart, that robot would be 1st on my list. Of course having a hate list in school today is a crime, probably if the beating-bot is on it too.

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erikotis on October 23rd, 2009 at 6:24 pm said:

To paraphrase the host of the “Happy Smile Super Challenge Family Wish Show,” “Your schools reward knowledge — we punish ignorance!”

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craig on October 23rd, 2009 at 7:18 pm said:

Now wait a minute. I remember reading that Beethoven’s piano teacher used to beat him horribly for missing a note while playing. See how it helped him acheive. Perhaps if I’d been beaten by these machines, I’d be head engineer at NASA. Oops, I spelled achieve wrong… (whack, whack, whack!)

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