“We want the children to be able to have some normalcy in their lives even though they have to [physically] stay in their [hospital] room.”

Article & Image Courtesy of MedGadget

Kids stuck in the hospital during the school year must still keep up with their studies, a pretty big challenge if you miss all the classes. Learning alone and without your teacher to lead the way is no fun and can make kids fall behind the rest of the class. Now a couple of kids at Children’s Cancer Hospital at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center can attend their own classes remotely thanks to VGo robots.

Each robot is controlled by the kid via a laptop, and it can ride around from classroom to classroom. There’s a camera and microphones built in and the child’s face is visible on the front screen, allowing kids in the hospital to ask questions and participate along with everyone else. In addition to going to school, the robots are also going to kids’ parties and one girl even went trick or treating, dresses as a… robot!

“We want the children to be able to have some normalcy in their lives even though they have to stay in their room,” says Wykesha Hayes, M. Ed., coordinator of the Pediatric School at the Children’s Cancer Hospital.

See the original article here.