This summer, my family visited relatives in Japan and spent two weeks touring this beautiful country!  Since this is a STEM-related website, I’ll spare you the “tourist pictures,” but I have to show at least one.  Here’s a picture taken at the Itsukushima Shrine.  Its easily one of the most iconic images of Japan’s culture.

Now back to STEM…  One of the fun stops that we made was to the ROBOSQUARE factory store and museum.  ROBOSQUARE is the company that sells robot toys that you make.  They had EVERY kind of robot toy that you can imagine!

However, I think that this is the coolest robot that I’ve ever seen!  Yes, it’s a Cup of Noodle robot!

Only the country that makes a Cup of Noodles robot would name a building this:

Perhaps something got lost in translation, but you have to love a country that has “Happy Science!”  Maybe we should be working with the Japanese to develop a STEM Education “PR” campaign!