St Werbot the Scrapstore Robot
If you’ve ever visited us, driven past us, or just wandered around St Werburghs, you may have met our friendly Scrapstore robot, St Werbot! Read on to find out their story, and the people behind their creation.
Meet the Artist
Our robot was designed and created by the incredibly talented artist, Szabolcs Vass. Szabi is a community artist from Serbia, who works with recycled materials like rubber tyres, and turns them into sculptures. He makes art to raise awareness of the damage of waste on the environment, and enjoys giving back to the community in a creative way. Szabolcs has made some fabulous work over the years, such as The Rooster in St Werburghs, The Bison in Serbia, and our very own Scrapstore Robot, here at Children's Scrapstore! Thank you to Szabi for all their hard work and amazing talent.
Reuse Fair 2022
As part of our Reuse Fair 2022, we asked Szabi if he could create a sculpture using scrap materials, to give a live demonstration of scrap art being created, and to give us a figure that represented Children’s Scrapstore and the community as a whole. We couldn’t have been happier with the result, and feel that St Werbot truly encompasses the themes of scrap, reuse, and community. If you look closely, you will find reused keyboards, phones, crutches and more!
Naming Competition
In the summer of 2023, we launched a competition to give our fabulous Scrapstore Robot an official name! They had various different nicknames previously, but not a definitive name, and we decided that a naming competition would be a great way to engage with our community, and continue their story. As such, we launched our competition in June 2023, both online and in-store. We were so excited to receive so many excellent name choices, which made picking just one pretty difficult! Some of our favourite runner ups included Werborg, Scrapbot, Sprocket, Mr Wherlyburg, and Moko; all cracking names! Consequently, we consulted all of our different teams and staff at Scrapstore to narrow it down, before asking Szabi to make the final decision. We finally had our winner, but decided to stick true to our Robot’s beginnings to announce their name…
Reuse Fair 2023
As part of our 2023 Community Reuse Fair, we decided to have a robot naming announcement, in commemoration of his creation at the last year’s Reuse Fair in 2022. We invited along the winners, Toby and his sister Gracie, and Edie, as well as the artist Szabi, to talk about the robot and finally announce their name. As you already know, the winning name was St Werbot! We felt this name encompassed what they represented most; community (being a portmanteau of robot and St Werburghs) and the fun found within it. It was so wonderful to engage with everyone who came out to see the unveiling, and to enjoy the Reuse Fair.
Fashion Icon
Apart from watching over the community, St Werbot can also be seen sporting some exciting outfits and fashion moments from time-to-time. These have all been made by our incredible volunteers, so thank you very much to all our volunteers who helped dress our fashionista. Have you seen him wearing anything of the different outfits below?
