A companion on my robot-naturalist treks would be greatly appreciated, @Guy Jester. I find that the late afternoon is often a good time to make sightings. How about this Friday after school? We can start on lower campus and just take it from there.

@patrick, how can we be sure these are your creations? Are there some kind of distinguishing features we can look for? A maker's mark?

Here's today's Field Report:

Where: The croquet field.

When: 5:49pm

What: I observed four large (three to four feet in diameter) chrome domes on stubby legs, which grazed in the field like giant tortoises. I was able to get within 25 yards and see that their "legs" were actually hundreds of stiff bristles, which moved together in waves. This gave them the appearance of floating over an undersea floor.

Closer inspection revealed that they were headless. Then the small group got spooked and bolted, skittering over the grass and dandelions with alarming speed, and smashing into the woods at the far end of the field.

More incredible luck sighting the the wild robot creatures that our natural environment seems to be teeming with!

I met @Guy Jester on lower campus at the appointed time. As we discussed our backgrounds, it quickly became evident that we have different viewpoints concerning the observation and documentation of sentient lifeforms in the wild. He arrived in a pith helmet, safari jacket, a blunderbuss loaded with weighted nets, live-trap crates, magnetic monofilament snares, AI jamming transmitters, and an array of other equipment carried on the backs of a small group of freshmen. I arrived in my usual jacket-of-many pockets, field glasses, and notebook.

"Dear sir," I said, "as a scientist who professes great empathy for these living, sentient, robotic creatures, you seem to have an insatiable need to capture, dissect, and catalog them like so many butterflies! Truly, only pure, non-invasive observation of their unadulterated movements and behaviors is the true path to understanding these rare beings! What say you?!!"

But just then, we were startled by a flock of metallic aerial creatures, perhaps a dozen, each the size of a seagull. They rose from the woods and hovered over our clearing in the garden for a moment, but just before @Guy Jester pulled off a shot from his net-shooting blunderbuss, they took off in the direction of the river.

Are these more of your creations, @patrick? Have you created an entire Ark of these wondrous fauna?

I started taking Professor Torrentius' class on Sentient Automatons and their Role in Psychic Society last fall, @Mulemai Selenei, but didn't realize it was a sociology course, so changed out. I am on a biology track, but appealing to the faculty to allow me to include sentient robotic animals as well.

@Adam Ranger I don't think those are mine i have only finished two designs of mine and you have seen one of them on 2/21/2016 at 5:37pm my other design has not been sighted yet which is wierd given it is 25 feet tall and almost 250 pounds of spacial steel and there are about 10 of them. I am working on a design that is based on a student but i dont have anyone to base it on. @Mulemai Selenei would you like to model for it. Also if anyone has a way of drawing wire into strands about 10 nanometers thick i need it it is really a pain to do it without the proper machines to pull it that thin. This will be the ultimate automaton when i finish at the current rate i should be done by 2020 but with a better way to get the wire i should finish in late may.

Sightings of robotic fauna have been disturbingly limited in the past few days. I've only spotted a few mechanical butterflies and a robot trout!

I am concerned that @Guy Jester is somehow involved. His eagerness to capture "some" of these "magnificent specimens," accompanied by his obvious scientific and intellectual prowess (as well as his large arsenal of robot catching equipment), makes me wonder if he hasn't decided to create his own mechanical menagerie! And to what end, I ask you!?!

My only wish is for these beautiful, automated creatures to proliferate, and find a place in our modern biome in which they can experience the freedom and dignity their sentient and conscious state demands. I will continue my observations in field and wood, field glass and notebook in hand, and do my best to be their champion.

If you spot any of these remarkable mechanical wonders in the wild yourself, I'd be honored for you to share your field reports with me. Together, our web of respectful, non-invasive scientific observations will no doubt shed light into their most intimate secrets, and in the most humane way possible.

Now the snack machine is calling me really derogatory names when I walk by, and sayin stuff like "Hey kid, why don't you put another $5 in me? Hyuk hyuk hyuk!"

@Guy Jester I thought you were going to have a talk with that vending machine? Because if you did then it didn't help! And the machines next to it are getting sucked in by peer pressure and going along with the mean one and laughing at its jokes. It's only a matter of time until they start eating money (or fingers) too...

Help us @Guy Jester. You're our only hope!

The frogs sure are raising a racket these days. I've had the shutters open on the treehouse, letting in that spring night air. And the frog song. @twinflower and @boooky feel it too. Life is starting to come out of everything.

I think those mechanical animals have been just moving deeper into the forest, @Adam Ranger. I've been seeing them in increasing numbers on my walks through the woods. Saw what looked like a ball of cables rolling across the forest floor just today, and a swarm of drones as fast and small as hummingbirds. Could be there's more food to eat in the forest now that spring is springing--they don't have to forage around human habitation for sustenance, like crows or raccoons.

Though I can't say I've ever seen one eat. Or leave any kind of scat.

Tonight I tried cutting through school from the pool to the cafeteria - but THEY cut me off. The evil vending machines! I barely made it out in one piece!

The fluorescent hall lights were half off (where are the light switches anyway? why don't trust us with light switches?), and I tried being really sneaky, but just as I turned the corner, BAM there they were. At first they surrounded me, then started chest bumping me with their front panels and snapping at me with their flappy take-out ports.

But then the main one - the one who was the first one to steal my money and start bullying me - it was getting cocky, and strutted out in front of the others to get right in my face, kind of rocking from side to side to move around, but leaned too far to one side and fell over with a big crash. That's when I took off.

I'm not cutting through the building at night again, that's for sure.

And I haven't seen @Guy Jester for days. Last I heard he was going go talk with those machines but... what if they ate him? What if he's trapped inside one of them right now, surviving on only Funyuns and Milky Way bars? And if he didn't have any luck, who else can stand up against these monsters?

Boy has it been an eventful few days...

I'd like to first thank @Huck Phearson for his concern, but nothing hapERR15896455543X1564X981354pened! I took a stroll through around the grounds one afternoon in search of some BEAUTIFUL robots, oh my were they beautiful. And I think that I must have tripped and hit my head or something! Long story short I'm just fine. In fact, I'm better than fine, I'm AMAZING. I have never felt so fantastic. You know, if anyone is ever feeling a little down in the dumps, or even if you are feeling happy, I HIGHLY recommend a walk around the easERR9398009388327XX667Xtern grounds of the campus, I know you'll be happy with what you find!

Signing Off, Juy Gester

I'm taking a few days off of school to explore the woods and gather more data on the robotic wildlife. I'll be heading off from the eastern side of campus, since @Guy Jester reports that's good area to spot them, but I'm prepared to go deep into the woods and hopefully observe what @timberlina's been seeing.

I've got my little one-man tent, a sleeping bag, my field glasses, and my notebook. And trail mix. I'll try to make reports as 4G allows. Wish me luck!

Somebody needs to get those bully vending machines in line. They behave well enough if there's a lot of people around, but they're still sneering at me and muttering under their breath. Could you get a chance to try your machine-whisperer magic on them @Guy Jester? I've emailed the admin staff but they just ignore me. I've heard it has something to do with the Vending Machine Union so they're afraid to do anything. But maybe you can talk to them, Guy?