A Current Affair (9now): Special Robots Teleport Sick Children Into The Classroom

This article was first published on A Current Affair (9Now). To view the original article click here.

A special robotics program aimed at teleporting sick children into the classroom needs more funding to reach more kids across Australia.

Called “Missing School”, it has connected over five thousand classmates through almost 200 robots, training hundreds of school teachers in every state.

“The telepresence robot stands in the classroom of kids who can’t be there physically, so these kids can dial in from wherever they are,” said co-founder Megan Gilmour, whose own son Darcy was seriously ill as a child.

A special robotics program aimed at teleporting sick children into the classroom needs more funding to reach more kids across Australia. (A Current Affair)

“I don’t need to tell any family out there and any mother out there, how hard that was to watch what happened to him as a person socially, to have him separated from school, community and friends.”

Abbie Sweeper had a promising future as a young equestrian competitor but, in 2019, a then 10-year-old Abbie was competing at pony club when her life changed forever.

“All of a sudden I was turning at the last peg and the horse went one way; I went the other,” Abbie said.

By keeping her microphone and camera on, she can speak to classmates and even answer the teacher’s questions. (A Current Affair)

The freak horse riding accident caused severe damage to Abbie’s spinal cord, where it attaches to the brain and she was in hospital for almost a year – cut off from school and friends.

Her mother Amanda said, “Abbie was always quite gifted academically so I knew how important that was for her”.

While in hospital Amanda heard about the Missing School program and Abbie has been using it ever since.

The technology is available across Australia in every state and territory and has recently received some Commonwealth Government funding but needs more. (A Current Affair)

“Abbie can control the robot from our house seven kilometres away from school,” Amanda said.

Named Sheldon by one of her school officers, Abbie’s robot, Charmaine McLuckie is an electronic tablet on a stem with wheels to move around.

“I was at home one night watching Big Bang and it happened to be the episode where Sheldon came on, on a robot trying to get to work because he was sick,” Charmaine said.

Abbie is able to drive the robot into classes.

By keeping her microphone and camera on, she can speak to classmates and even answer the teacher’s questions.

Fellow students like Lillie Brunton admit it takes some getting used to.

“We’ll sit around a circle table, her normal table and we’ll just be doing what everyone else in the class is doing, just talking to a robot,” Lillie said.

The technology is available across Australia in every state and territory and has recently received some Commonwealth Government funding but needs more.

To reach more kids, we need additional funding. Megan Gilmour, our co-founder who has a personal connection to the cause, explains that telepresence robots help children attend class remotely. So far, the program has connected over 5,000 classmates using nearly 200 robots and trained hundreds of teachers across Australia.

For information on how you can access Missing School or to help, visit here.

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