Thieves return some property to Nanogirl
Children’s robots and other equipment stolen from Nanogirl’s Auckland office two nights ago have been returned, wrapped in a blanket at her front gate.
Dr Michelle Dickinson, known as Nanogirl because of her nanotechnology research, said police could not believe it when she told them she found the missing items at her gate early yesterday.
“The police were like, ‘What do you mean?”’ she said.
Security camera footage clearly showing the faces of the man and woman who broke into Dickinson’s Nanogirl Labs in Ponsonby at 3am on Saturday were published in the Herald on Sunday and on social media.
“After the story you guys ran, and people sharing the pictures, some time between 9pm [on Sunday] and 7am [yesterday], some of the items were returned to us, left on the doorstep, wrapped in a blanket,” Dickinson said.
“There was no note, nothing. At 7am when I arrived at the office I found a carefully wrapped blanket of items.”
There is a high wall outside the building, which the thieves must have scaled to break into the office with a crowbar on Saturday. But they left the items in the blanket “outside the wall, in the shelter so it didn’t get rained on”.
The stolen items, including cameras, robots and electronic gear, were to be used for a national tour of schools starting in November.
Nanogirl Labs chief executive Joe Davis had said the tour might be delayed because a month wasn’t long enough to replace all the stolen items.
But yesterday Dickinson said the tour would now go ahead as planned because about 70 per cent of the stolen items had been returned.
“It was camera gear, science equipment, robots, you name it. There was a big box of things,” she said.
“Not all of them work any more, but at least we’ve got them back.”
Davis said the team had received an incredible outpouring of support from the community since the weekend.
Police inquiries continue.