Existing Programs in Career Robotics

If you are the administrator of an engineering or vocational school with a curriculum track in robotics, you are most likely training students for engineering or technical support roles in the design, application and/or servicing of industrial, scientific or service robot installations. Your returns on the school's investments are the careers you open up for your graduates. The added return on investment for the SR4 Robots you use in your training and curricula are the fact that your students graduate with very current hands-on computer, networking and mobile robot skills not as attainable or as easily integrated into your robotics track with the stationary industrial robotics equipment already in use in your classrooms, or even the expensive automatic guided vehicles (AGV) that you may also have in your program.

If you currently have AGVs in your program, you will find that the computing, networking, software and database elements of those system are outdated, inflexible, expensive, difficult to learn, difficult to maintain and, most of all, do not integrate easily with other current-day computer systems on the plant or factory floor. The SR4 Robot as either an added or surrogate AGV system in the classroom is much less expensive for educational purposes, yet features compatibility, connectivity and networking capabilities that are fully compatible with the computer networks and the PC's in your school, as well as with the networks and PCs in the companies who will be hiring your graduates. AGV computing and networking is rapidly moving toward the technology featured on the SR4. Your graduates will play an important role in their early careers in speeding that process.

If you do not have AGVs as part of your robotics curriculum, you can now add that capability to your curriculum for a fraction of the cost you could before the SR4 Robot.

Robots in the Classroom to Teach Technology, Science and Other Skills

As an administrator of a primary, secondary or post-secondary educational school or university, you are regularly faced with the question "Which programs, equipment and materials should receive the limited funds we have to spend - and in what amounts?"

And when it comes to robots and robotics, assuming your school does not already have a robotics curriculum or use robots in technology, science and/or non-technical curriculums, "How do I begin to evaluate the importance and role of this technology within our school, college or university?"

There are four general classifications of robots that are in use in classrooms today:

1. Hobby robots that are primarily useful for introducing students to the idea of service robots and to entry-level skills in electronics, computing, software, and mechanical systems (mostly mobility), plus the ever-important experience of teamwork.
2. Educational Service Robots that are large, mobile robot platforms with computing and communications capabilities compatible with current day commercial software and communications systems in use in business and industry. These platforms serve as development platforms for students in pursuing the principles of a wide variety of mobile robot applications currently in use or otherwise under development in corporate R & D labs worldwide.
3. Educational Pick and Place Robots and similar scaled-down industrial-like robots, which are used primarily to introduce students to the principles of automated factory processes.
4. Industrial Robots which are most often donated to schools by corporate partners or industrial robot suppliers, or otherwise acquired by schools from secondary markets.

The SR4 Robot is a service-robot-category mobile robot platform that is most important in its ability to motivate students to learn a variety of subjects found across a broad mix of curriculums in all schools; computers, electronics, mechanical engineering, physics, mathematics, other sciences, languages, research, writing and communications, teamwork, project management, etc.

The SR4 Robot is the most cost-effective service robot platform available to educators today.

To more fully appreciate what the SR4 Robot in particular may have to offer your school, college or university, you will want to review the other sections of this web site that are addressed to teachers, students, home schoolers and self-learners.