It may look a little like a toilet on wheels when it’s folded up, but when deployed, it’s something far more interesting. Pebbles (which is one of those clunky acronyms for “Providing Education by Bringing Learning Environments to Students”) is a robot telepresence system for kids who have to spend a long time in the hospital. Such a lengthy stay can be a huge setback for a child, in terms of their schoolwork and maintaining ties to their school chums. Pebbles acts as a robotic proxy, with one unit in the classroom and one by the child’s hospital bed. Basically a teleconferencer on wheels, the child can see what’s going on in the classroom (and be seen in return), and s/he can move the classbot around via a game controller, and even raise the robots hand to participate in class discussions. The student can even move the robot from class to class, stopping off at the lockers to talk trash and to chase down and dispatch bullies with the onboard flamethrower (okay, I made that last part up, I got a little carried away by the whole concept).
Read an AP piece on Pebbles.
See the Pebbles page at Ryerson University in Canada.
Check out the Pebbels info at Telebotics, the bots’ maker.