Girl and Robot                      Est. 1892

A 3D animated steam-punk set in a futuristic 1892.

A young girl builds a steam powered robot but has trouble getting it started.  After turning up her power source too high the machine explodes, spraying cranks, pistons and sprockets around the room.

There is a surprising and touching ending as we discover that the robot is alive and has saved our heroine from a falling girder. 

Teaching Ideas

• Watch the film up to the title screen.  Ask the children if they can guess what it is going to be about.  Are there any clues.
• Watch some more and ask the children to come up with questions.  (Why is she building it? where are her parents? Why is she not at school? etc)
• The children can collect vocabulary to do with machinery, cranks, pipes, spanners, sprockets and bolts.  They can then use this vocabulary in their written work.
• Design their own robots and label with descriptions. 
• Create the bare bones for the story and use these to write a narrative.
• Create a journal page for the girl, charting her successes and failures over a week.  Perhaps using language to show her frustration.  
• What happens next?  Children write the next part of the story.
• Write instructions for building a robot.