Robot Eye

Robot Eye

We brought the kids (ages 8 and 4) to Singapore for a learning educational trip October of 2004. We went to the zoo, night safari, marine world, the Science Discovery Center, the wetlands and even a tropical rainforest. I think the most memorable place for my daughter is the Science Center because she can already understand most of the concepts taught. Plus, she was able to survive 1 million volts of lightning! (while inside a metal cage, of course.) For my son, the most memorable is, understandably, the Sentosa Island with its fabulous laser show at night.

For me, however, their toilets still bring a smile to my face up to now. Now, don’t make your judgments on me yet. Please let me tell you the whole story.

Singapore is indeed a very clean country. They are quite strict on spitting, throwing garbage on the streets. Their public toilets are very modern, clean and sanitized. No smell at all. (This is really quite different from the smelly public toilets in China – my son refuses to urinate there! Not to mention the Philippines where the only public toilets accessible are those from the fast-food restaurants and gas stations.) And most of the toilets have automatic flushes! Now, I am no stranger to automatic flushes. But this is the first time my son encountered one.

“Mommy, the toilet flushed by itself!”

“Yes. It has sensors.”

“Sensors? What are sensors?”

“Well, it can feel that you have stopped your wee-wee and so it will flush your wee-wee out be itself.”

“Wow! Maybe it can see me.”

“No, it doesn’t have eyes.”

“Yes, it does. See the little red blinking light? That’s the robot eyes”

One day, he had to poo-poo in a public toilet and as I was wiping him with a tissue (available free of course) the toilets automatically flushed even when he was still sitting down.

“ Mommy, you know why it flushed? Because my poo-poo is baho baho.”

“Well… I’m not sure that’s the reason…”

“Yes it is. The robot doesn’t want to smell yucky poo-poo so he flushed even if I’m not yet finished.”

“You know, mommy, I like it here. Their toilets have robot eyes.”