 Robotics may be to the 21st century what the automobile was to the last century. USM's Creative Intelligence and Innovation Lab was open last week with special guests. Beth Mahan of Aldebaran Robotics talked with Brian Knoblack about how the convergence of technologies is leading to a new generation of interactive devices that could help humans with a wide variety of tasks. Hello, my name is now. I'm a humanoid robot, imagined and manufactured by Aldebaran Robotics. I come with a software and I'm fully programmed. Beth, tell us about your friend here. This is Rosie and it's known as now. N-A-O is the robot, how it's known. Aldebaran Robotics and robot is being deployed to universities, research labs, K-12 schools, ideally for grade 6 and up, even high school. Undergrads and graduates use it in classrooms and for research. What kind of capabilities does the robot have? The robot has audio and voice recognition. It can walk, talk, dance, grab objects, play music, identify your face as I mentioned. It can be fully programmed for customized movements but it also has a software suite so you can navigate it. And it has natural motion and reflexes as well, right? Sensors. It has 12 sensors, yes. And what do they do? The sensors are used to detect not only objects but sounds and also for surfaces, for example, has four sensors on each of its feet so it can sense whether it's on the floor or it's not. And what's the purpose of the presentation here today at USM? The purpose of our presentation is to show the school the robot. They may want to use it for research. They may want to use it for computer science labs, for example. When I do go to universities, oftentimes schools of education are interested in the robot for teach the teacher kind of robotics programs. The robot is used in many psychology labs across the world as a testing platform for possible communication device for children with autism, for example, or other individuals who may have disabilities. What kind of research in robotics do various universities do? Are some of it artificial intelligence? Some of it is movement? How does that work? Yes, so that's absolutely correct. Localization mapping research, as I mentioned, interacting and research with maybe speech impediments or language barriers, attention deficit disorders type of research for individuals. Advancements in elderly care and robotics applications in the home for someone that might want an assistant or even just to have a robot in the home as a companion. What kind of assistance could it provide to an elderly person or someone with disabilities in the future? Yes, so the size of this robot is such that it only has its physical limitations to its size. It only weighs 15 pounds, so it's not going to pick up a load of laundry and do a load of laundry. But the size of this robot is a good testing platform for those advancements. So the goal of our company is to provide a robot in the home ultimately. And the robot would be doing things like helping out with particular tasks that somebody might not be able to perform. This robot could call 911. It could read your email. It could remind you to take your medicine. There are certain things that it can do because even though it has its physical limitations. Would robots like this in this size or larger be a cost-effective solution for helping somebody who needs assistance in the home as opposed to having a full-time caregiver? Yes, we think so. If you look at the cost, I'm not an expert in this field. But I think that most individuals would take a look at what they might be paying for their elder care, whether it's a nurse in the home or having someone live in a facility is exceptionally expensive. I hear rates of, you know, $3,000 to $5,000 even for a week for some elderly people to be in these care facilities. And so it's not to say that it's going to take the place of health care, but it can solve a lot of issues potentially for someone who wants to stay in the home longer because it does have cameras so someone could check in on their elderly parents, for example, and make sure that they took their medicine and make sure that they're still watching TV and they're sitting comfortably, things like that, basic things that might be helpful. And what kind of educational programs do you have as well? So the educational partnership program is something that we stand behind and that's where we have an application that schools will fill out and then they purchase five or more robots and they receive a significant discount on the robot. They tell us what they'd like to do with the robot, whether it be a workshop, a summer camp, a computer science lab course with introdorobotics, for example, using our STEM curriculum for the focuses of science, technology, engineering, mathematics. And so where do you see the future going? What's your ultimate goal? My view, I think that robots will be used as a tool to help people's lives and improve people's lives and also at the same time be an advanced platform to be able to perform functions that might be hazardous to a human like working in a radioactive facility, for example. So I do think that there's a strong demand for it and I think that that will continue to grow. I don't think robots are going away. I think that it's really kind of a wave of a big revolution that's actually happening.