A Messi robot? Northland summer school students build animatronics for World Cup
Surrounded by eager Northland students, Argentina’s star forward Lionel Messi spoke about his highly celebrated career and his dream to lift the FIFA World Cup trophy up in triumph once again.
Well, a much smaller, less-human version of Messi did, at least.
North Kansas City School District eighth grade students created an animatronic version of the famous soccer player Wednesday as part of the district’s Future Ready Lab to learn more about programming, costume design, script writing and voiceover work — all with a special emphasis on the World Cup.
Along with Messi, students created animatronics of England’s Harry Kane, The Netherlands’ Memphis DePay and Kansas City’s own sports commissioner, Kathy Nelson — each with its own costume, wig, face, movements and speech about their lives.
“I’m just so, so proud of these kids that they took the time and their summer break through summer school to have the opportunity to sit here and learn through a sporting event that totally connects the world,” said Nelson, who attended the project showcase Wednesday afternoon. “They’re part of it now, and that’s just really neat.”
Around 30 Maple Park Middle School students spent the last few weeks of the summer term weaving English language arts and STEM skills together to research the international soccer teams with base camps in Kansas City and create animatronics based on their findings.
Through each step of the creation process, Cammy Neth, coordinator of the Future Ready Lab located in Gladstone, said she worked to relate everything back to real life careers and opportunities.
Teams of student costume designers and makeup artists created every detail of the around 3-foot-tall robots, from DePay’s orange jersey to Messi’s facial hair, Kane’s blonde hair and Nelson’s blazer.
Students interested in animation, coding and engineering planned and programmed their movements, moving the robots’ arms and heads as they “spoke.”
And students interested in things like script writing, public speaking or audio wrote and voiced the robots’ speeches.
“I want kids to know what’s available to them. I want them to know that we actually need them, that people are turning more to us in education and saying, ‘Hey, can you get kids ready for what we need in that field,’” Neth said. “If I can be that connector for them between the interests that they have with the needs that our city has, then it’s a win for our whole community.”
Connor Donnelly, who will be an eighth grader at Maple Park in the fall, used the experience to grow his programming skills, taking inspiration from video games like Five Nights at Freddy’s.
And someday, he hopes to pursue a career in programming, he said.
“It was pretty fun doing it,” Donnelly said.
For Nelson, who played a key role in helping Kansas City plan and prepare to host the World Cup, seeing herself portrayed as an animatronic was an experience she never expected to have.
But it was also a “legacy” moment for her, sparking emotion as she watched the spirit of the World Cup shine inside the classroom.
“As you’re working all those years on all the operations and details and the bid specs, you don’t really think about this. So, to see it play out this way is extremely special,” said Nelson, who attended North Kansas City public schools as a child. “I just think it’s cool to see that the excitement is now filtering all throughout our city, our streets and our schools.”
