Robotic waiters among children’s predictions for life 200 years from now
Flying cars, jet packs and robotic waiters are among the predictions for life in 200 years time, at least according to the winners of Legoland’s latest competition.
As part of a creativity competition launched by the Legoland Discovery Centre and judged by futurist Richard Watson, children aged ten and under were asked to imagine and illustrate what they thought life would be like in the year 2219.
The winner, seven-year-old Saira Ali, created an illustration that included “sky orbs” to light up the night sky, and flying cars. Her image has now been reconstructed in Lego pieces and has gone on display at the Legoland Discovery Centre in Manchester.
Richard Watson said he was impressed by the winning design’s imagination as well as its extension of technology already in development such as autonomous cars.
“I saw hundreds of interesting and creative visions of how we could be living in the future, highlighting what the next generation imagines our lives will be like,” he said.
“What stood out to me about Saira’s picture was how imaginative it was – from ice cream buildings to sky orbs to flying cars, she certainly shows an interesting vision of the future.
“If we already have driverless cars now, who’s to say we won’t have flying cars by 2219? Ice cream buildings are probably a bit more of a stretch, but who knows.”
Trials of driverless cars have already been conducted in several locations around the UK.
As part of her prize, Saira also received a year’s membership to the Manchester centre.
“The world right now isn’t very colourful, so in the future I want everything to be more colourful and eye-catching – that’s why I put lots of rainbow colours in there,” she said of her winning illustration.
“The flying cars just came off the top of my head, because it would be cool if you looked outside and all the cars were floating in the air with wings on them.”
Other entries featured train tracks in the sky and a “go away cloud machine” to disperse clouds and keep the sun out.
