Remote presence robots for teaching children with disabilities

    There are more than 20 million schoolchildren in Russia, of which about 90 thousand children have physical status violations, which makes it difficult for them to move in space and access to social and educational resources, and about 500 thousand have other health problems that prevent them from regularly attend classes in schools.

    A system of inclusive education was created for children with disabilities, which involves the education of such children not in a specialized, but in a regular educational institution. The possibility of education for all children, regardless of the limitations of their health opportunities, is enshrined in the Law on Education in the Russian Federation of December 29, 2012.

    To implement this bill, all schools were obliged to attach ramps so that wheelchair users could easily enter the school building. How they should get to this building and how they will move inside the school itself - the bill is silent about this. As the saying goes, the main thing is opportunity ...

    Unfortunately, physically we cannot provide all children with freedom of movement through school classes and corridors. But we can do this remotely using our Webot telepresence robot.

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    Robot Webot is equipped with a high-resolution video camera, built-in microphone and speakers. With their help, you can communicate with other people. At the base of the robot is a three-wheeled trolley, which provides good maneuverability and stability of the robot. The lower chamber and the parking sensors system at the base of the cart allow you to carefully overcome all kinds of obstacles. The "head" and "neck" of the robot can rotate in all directions, and Webot can also follow the gaze of the selected object.

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    The robot is controlled through a service on the Internet. Access to the robot can be either public (robots in museums and other public places), or private, i.e. password protected. The height of the robot is 140 cm, weight 26 kg. Battery life up to 9 hours without recharging.

    As part of our educational experiment, we placed the robot in one of the mountain schools. Rainbow Vladimir region. Access to the robot was given to a student who has been unable to attend school for a long time due to health reasons. The child quickly mastered the intuitive control interface of the robot and assured us that "everything is like a shooter, you can’t shoot people only . " The robot was placed in one of the elementary school classes. During the lesson, the robot stands at the desk, but at the invitation of the teacher can “go out” to the board.

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    At first, the children showed great interest in their new classmate, but soon ceased to pay excessive attention to him.

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    For several months of testing, a student who attended school with a robot not only improved his academic performance, but also made contact with his peers. Who said robots interfere with live communication? Nothing like this!

    The results of the experiment on the introduction of robots in an inclusive education environment are recognized as successful. At the moment, we have opened on Boomstarter a project to raise funds for components for a new robot , which will be donated to one of Moscow schools.

    A detailed description of the device of our robot can be found on its website . There you can get temporary access to the device and learn the basics of control.

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