The University of Idaho ITS Help Desk has a new face — one that may be a bit surprising.
Insert JoBot, a robotic combination of gyroscopically controlled movement and an iPad. The robot has been on loan to the Help Desk from the Doceo Center for about a month.
Ian Bartlett | Argonaut
The ITS robot, JoBot, roamed the Idaho Commons on Tuesday. Students got to talk with the controller Angie, who was controlling it from Boise. The UI Doceo Center loaned JoBot to the Help Desk to get students interested in technology.
Darren Kearney, the Help Desk manager, said the Doceo Center brings a lot of new technology to the UI campus to see how people can use it. He said the Doceo Center loaned JoBot to the Help Desk as a fun way to get some attention, but also to communicate with people.
“We’re using it to do some outreach and talk to people, but it’s designed to be a telecommuting robot,” Kearney said. “Where people from home, if they can’t come into a meeting, could just log in to the robot, roll into an office, and really scare everybody.”
He said the Doceo Center is looking into ways students could use robots like JoBot in the future, such as a means for students to participate in classes when they are sick and can’t physically attend.
Despite moving to Boise, UI alumna Angie Bertllotti has continued her marketing job of the past three years working part-time for the Help Desk. She said she’s used JoBot about five times, and has used the robot to attend meetings in the Help Desk office.
The iPad screen makes it possible for JoBot’s controller to communicate with the people it sees along the way. Bertllotti said some people have found this surprising, but many stop to talk to her.
“Sometimes people are really intrigued by it, and then other times people just kind of give you a double-take and walk away,” Bertllotti said. “A lot of people are really friendly, and they’ll say ‘hi,’ and they’re really curious about how it works, and just the details on the robot, and what it is.”
Kearney said JoBot’s communication controls operate in a way that is similar to FaceTime, and just requires a fast-enough Internet speed.
“So we could have someone overseas running it. You could run it from the computer sitting next to the robot, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “You just have to have a decent network con- nection. Anything that could run Skype, you would be able to control the robot pretty well.”
Kearney said JoBot is part of a larger goal to connect to students and increase awareness of the Help Desk’s capabilities.
“We’ve gotten to a point where we’re not changing a whole ton of technology right now, because we just upgraded the email systems — we’ve got Office 365 in place, and we’re doing those things,” he said. “We have the opportunity to now do some of the more, some of those fun things where we can go out and do things with students.”
He said the people that work at the Help Desk want to reach out to students, and would like to hear new ideas regarding the robotic technology.
“Come up and say ‘hi,'” Kearney said. “Come talk to the Help Desk. Tell us any sort of technology needs people have, or if there’s something they’d like to see us doing.”
Daphne Jackson can be reached at [email protected]