EDU221TelepresenceRobot

The Tech Director for RSU 26 sent a description to the ACTEM listserv about the [|VGo Telepresence robot] that they're using with a student.

"We do have one here in Orono. We had a student that was spending a large amount of time in the hospital and this enabled them to attend some of their core classes remotely. It is a VGo robot (www.vgocom.com) and it was a piece of cake to setup. Assign an IP number and then download an app onto a laptop or iPad and everything from controlling the camera to the robot itself was done from there. The only issue that we ran into was that we have some larger hallways and spaces that it need to travel thru to get to their classes, and since these are non-teaching spaces and MLTI wireless didn’t cover them, we didn’t have the best wireless signal strength. The robot would still move thru these spaces but there was often times a decent lag in the video back to the user which wasn’t ideal."

Not bad for rural Maine!!
 * [[image:umfresources/4993782506_6a3903b7cd_o.png]] || [|The company website describes the VGo]:

"VGo is a new productivity improvement solution that enables a person to replicate themself in a distant location and have the freedom to move around as if they were physically there. With VGo, you can see, hear, talk, interact, and go anywhere. VGo is not a traditional videoconferencing/telepresence solution where two or more people meet using specially equipped rooms or PCs in their offices. With VGo, you are completely independent of the people in the distant location – it’s 100% remote controlled. You don’t make a call – you just go there – your presence is established remotely via VGo’s physical presence. Some users describe VGo as their personal "avatar". Others describe how VGo "embodies" the remote person. " ||