Opportunity’s Getting Forgetful in its Old Age

Opportunity Mars Rover

Ask my 5-year-old who her favourite robot is, she’ll quickly tell you “R2D2.” Press her about who her favourite real robot is, and she’ll confidently answer “Curiosity.” The SUV-sized mobile science lab who charmed the internet with its selfies may have captured her imagination, but for my money, little Opportunity has Curiosity beat, hands-down. To date, Opportunity has exceeded its mission by somewhere near 10 years. That’s pretty old for a space robot, it seems, because the flash memory onboard Opportunity has started getting corrupted after being in use for so long. In human terms, Opportunity is having trouble…

My Robot Friend

One of the things I found most difficult about being a teacher candidate was moving all the time. Every three to five weeks over the course of teacher’s college, I was picking up and moving either from my crappy apartment in Kingston to my folks’ place in Ottawa or back to the aforementioned crappy apartment. It was nice to be back at home; I hadn’t lived with my parents in years, and I had hardly been home at all in the previous fourteen months due to a punishing work schedule…