Students at Saint Bartholomew in East Brunswick, New Jersey share the classrooms with a robot called VGo. The robot enabled 13-year-old Tyler Knurek to attend classes while being physically at home. Tyler has cancer and has been unable to attend schoold because of his treatments.
The school along with Tyelr's classmates raised $8,000 to buy the robot, which has helped him to cope with his studies. The robot has greatly helped him so he wouldn't miss out on the school year.
Tyler said it was very cool for his friends and the school to do it for him. He uses his iPad to see and hear his classmates and teachers. Tyler is able to maneuver the robot with the controls on his iPad, Fox 5 New York reported.
The class can also see and hear Tyler through the robot. He said the VGo robot has helped him feel like he was part of his friends and teachers in class.
VGo is a tool that can be applied to a wide variety of financial and organizational problems such as healthcare, education, and business. Tyler's VGo model is the E-1000 that is made for school setting. It has wifi, administration software, standard battery (6hrs), US Power Cord, 20 VGo App licenses, 1 year hardware warranty and its own Phone and email Help desk support.
Experts have shared their opinion on the matter and said robots of all shapes and sizes will play a major role in education in the next 5 to 8 years. Henny Admoni, a robot researcher from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh said the robots can be used to tutor children. As an example she cited how a child can learn at school and then come home and practice with a robot.
Admoni said that a robot can also help children with special needs such as autism by helping them make eye contact, learn voice tones and be more comfortable with the outside world. She added that robots aren't made to replace humans but to fill in the gaps with specific skillset to help in human everyday lives.
