Daylight began fading to dark, the temperature dipped a few degrees, and nearly 600 people danced on the soccer field at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
The Black Eyed Peas’ six-minute hip-hop hit “Rock That Body” blared through the stadium’s public address system. Students, faculty members and members of the community marked the beat by moving simultaneously like robots.
Some even wore costumes of cardboard painted silver.
The Monday night event was staged in part to break the Guinness world record for the largest group of people doing the robot dance at one time in the same place.
Another reason? To draw public and student attention to the new automated book retrieval system that began operating this summer at the Miller Nichols Library on campus.
“This isn’t just about getting students together,” said Chaz Walgren, a senior and vice president of the UMKC student body, which organized the event. “It is also about community involvement.”
High school students from the YMCA Young Achievers program joined the effort along, with Missouri State Sen. Jolie Justus and Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser. Neither politician danced, but both bobbed their heads a bit from the bleachers.
London’s Whitgift Independent School holds the current record of 429 dancers. With Monday evening’s gathering, UMKC unofficially broke that record, getting 550 dancers doing robot dance steps choreographed by students from the university’s dance conservatory.
“We tried to make the steps simple so that everyone could do them,” said Lynley Schaffer, a UMKC dance major from Pennsylvania.
UMKC’s retrieval system is unique in the region.
When someone requests a book, an automatic crane locates the item and delivers it to a pickup station on the first or third floor. There, a staff member takes the item from a bin and keeps it until it’s retrieved by the patron.
The university on Wednesday will dedicate the new addition that houses the retrieval system.
The Black Eyed Peas’ six-minute hip-hop hit “Rock That Body” blared through the stadium’s public address system. Students, faculty members and members of the community marked the beat by moving simultaneously like robots.
Some even wore costumes of cardboard painted silver.
The Monday night event was staged in part to break the Guinness world record for the largest group of people doing the robot dance at one time in the same place.
Another reason? To draw public and student attention to the new automated book retrieval system that began operating this summer at the Miller Nichols Library on campus.
“This isn’t just about getting students together,” said Chaz Walgren, a senior and vice president of the UMKC student body, which organized the event. “It is also about community involvement.”
High school students from the YMCA Young Achievers program joined the effort along, with Missouri State Sen. Jolie Justus and Kansas City Mayor Mark Funkhouser. Neither politician danced, but both bobbed their heads a bit from the bleachers.
London’s Whitgift Independent School holds the current record of 429 dancers. With Monday evening’s gathering, UMKC unofficially broke that record, getting 550 dancers doing robot dance steps choreographed by students from the university’s dance conservatory.
“We tried to make the steps simple so that everyone could do them,” said Lynley Schaffer, a UMKC dance major from Pennsylvania.
UMKC’s retrieval system is unique in the region.
When someone requests a book, an automatic crane locates the item and delivers it to a pickup station on the first or third floor. There, a staff member takes the item from a bin and keeps it until it’s retrieved by the patron.
The university on Wednesday will dedicate the new addition that houses the retrieval system.
