ready for a robot dance party?
IT all STARTS WITH A LEARNING GOAL…
As part of a Noggin initiative to create short-form content centered around monthly themes, my team was tasked with creating a video to teach kids about math featuring robotics. Seems like these two things should go hand-in-hand, right? But we had two main challenges—how do we engage children in playing along? And how do we make it about math rather than engineering?
THE ANSWER: ROBOT DANCE PARTY
One of the basic building blocks of understanding math is understanding patterns. We developed the idea of a dance party with a series of moves in different patterns, which would allow us to incorporate moments from across the Nick Jr. library and encourage kids to not only play along by guessing the next move but, hopefully, dance along with our robot friend!
so who’s this robot?
I have so much affection for my awkward robot. Of the Noggin short-form I worked on, this robot is my only original character! In the scripting process, I worked with Nick Jr.’s amazing in-house animation team to figure out the best way for this robot to move in two-dimensional space and how to incorporate clips from Nick Jr. properties — I even did some of my own test animations to show how they could scroll. The robot’s clunky movements informed the character; I developed the idea that the robot should be shy and stilted, but very eager to look cool on the dance floor. The robot’s personality in the script also informed the character design—it was imperative that it be cute. Very cute.
it’s alive!
Recording this robot is some of the most fun I’ve had directing a VO session. In the span of three hours, suddenly the little robot in my head finally felt real. And the sound design fully brought this character to life. In an effort to make sure the robot always stayed true to its cuteness—and to ensure it would not feel overwhelming to young children—we spent two days getting all the bells and whistles right. Literally.
Enough reading, let’s dance!
Video password is r0B0tDanc3