The Five Stages of Grief: An HRI Lab Christmas Carol

Warning: Less than Serious Material Ahead

Happy Holidays!

This year has marked large changes in the HRI Lab: this semester, our lab lost one member (to graduation! good for him, sad for us) and gained eight. Six new grad students started this semester, one more just joined and will be starting next month, and we acquired a new staff programmer.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I love to sing. It should thus be no surprise that I was thrilled to learn that two of my new labmates sing! I was even able to recruit one of them to join my a cappella group, Out of Range.
For our lab holiday party, my advisor decided that the lab band (BA$H!, comprised of my advisor on bass and keyboard, our lab manager on drums, our postdoc on guitar, and myself on vocals) would perform a few songs. So, I figured, as long as I was singing, there might as well be some a cappella action thrown in too!

I thus put together an a cappella arrangement of holiday carols for my two new singing labmates and I, themed around an obviously fictitious scenario in which our lab has to pull together a demo for a funding agency and things go horribly wrong.

Enjoy!

The Five Stages of Grief: An HRI Lab Christmas Carol

Scene: It’s Sunday night, and the grad students are busy at work in the lab. A demo of the HRI Lab’s new “Carol Singing Robot” needs to be given in the morning, but the robots have mysteriously stopped working

8:00 PM - Denial

Tune: Silent Night

Silent Nao, Soundless Nao
Working any second now
Nothing’s changed here, no code’s been revised
Why’d you stop when Matthias arrived
Nothing’s changed in your code
Nothing’s changed in your code

10:00 PM - Anger

Tune: Santa Claus is Coming to Town

You better not crash
You better not die
You better not break
I’m telling you why

ONR is coming to lab

They’ve gotta be wowed
They’ve gotta be stunned
They’re gonna decide
Whose project to fund

ONR is coming to lab

These processes keep sleeping
There must be some mistake
You can’t find java library?!
JUST COMPILE FOR GOODNESS SAKE!

You better not crash
You better not die
You better not break
I’m telling you why

ONR is coming to lab

12:00 AM - Bargaining

Tune: It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

I need to finish, it’s midnight here
Please help me fix all of these bugs (damn bugs!)
I’ll buy a case of your fav’rite beer
I’ll give you forty-six bucks (big bucks!)


Peace on the earth, a Mercedes-Benz
I’ll promise you ‘bout anything (more beer!)
If you would just help me figure out
How I can make this Nao sing

2:00 AM - Depression

Tune: Oh Little Town of Bethlehem

So little time to get this done
My brain is getting fried
I need to leave and go to sleep
This isn’t justified

Yet in the dark I’m working
Until I get this right
The jokes and jeers of all my peers
are met in me tonight

4:00 AM - Acceptance

Tune: White Christmas

I’m dreaming of a live demo
Just like the ones I used to watch
No components failing
No students swearing
No robots driving into walls (Great Big Holes!)

Oh and I’m dreaming of a live demo
With ev’ry action script I write
But until my tests get green lights
Let’s not do our demo live tonight