PEBBELS - Bringing the classroom to the hospital bed
Being hospitalized can have a severe impact on children's education as they are cut of from school. Missing out on just a couple of months classes can make a big difference, and cannot always be replaced with home tutoring. But now there is a solution called PEBBELS (Providing Education By Bringing Learning Environments to Students). It is essentially a robot thats takes your place in the classroom, relaying the images and sound of the teacher and the class to your bed at the hospital. When the first class is over it moves on to the next classroom or stays at the lockers giving you an opportunity to chat with your friends. The system works with two robots, one in the school and one at the hospital. The school one is remote controlled by the child, making it look and walk around and even raise its arm to answer questions. As for interface, one 15-inch monitor is placed on each robot, showing what the other robot is looking at making two way communication possible. This makes both the student and the teacher feel like the student is present in classroom. The robot also has ability of scanning and printing documents making paperwork not only staying in the classroom.
This is something that have proven to have a good effect on students ability to keep up with school while being in the hospital and the robots have even been accepted as the students themselves by fellow classmates. These new types of learning aids are an improvement for all sick children and is going to increase in popularity as they get cheaper.
References:
Stefan Wester, NT0601492M
