Andrews, a visual arts teacher at the school, said she initially thought the robot was taking pictures of the graduates. She was shocked when her husband called it a police robot and learned that it was providing 360-degree camera footage to the school security team.
Andrews said, “My response was, ‘Yuck’.” “What is it filming, what kind of camera is it on?”
The New Mexico school district launched a pilot program in mid-June with the robot patrolling multi-building campus grounds 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Amid growing concerns about gun violence and mass shootings in schools, several companies are starting to introduce similar robots to schools across the country. So far some schools have deployed the machines mainly for campus monitoring. But they have the potential to do much more, including potentially confronting intruders and others who enter premises without permission.
Using artificial intelligence, the robot learns the school’s general patterns of activity in Santa Fe and detects individuals who are on campus after hours or exhibiting aggressive behavior, said Andy Sanchez, who heads the North America Manages sales for Team 1st Technologies, distributor of robots in the U.S.
In the case of an active shooter or other threat, the robot can alert the security team, Sanchez said. It can move towards the intruder and transmit video footage that will inform the actions of the officers, he added. The robot is not armed, but can confront intruders, and human security team members will be able to talk to the intruder through the robot’s communication system.
Mario Salbidrez, executive director of safety and security at Santa Fe Public Schools, said the school decided to disable the robot’s weapon detection features during the pilot, though the safety team is determining whether it can be added later or No. Members of the district security team and the high school are responsible for reviewing video footage when the robot sends an alert about unusual activity.
The robot doesn’t have facial recognition features, Sanchez said, and Santa Fe High School owns the video footage of the robot, which means it can decide whether to save it.
Salbidrez said the robot has not yet detected intruders on campus, but it has alerted the security team to new workers entering the school’s construction site and individuals attempting to open locked doors in harmless attempts to enter buildings. alerted. Its cameras have also captured faculty members waving at the camera and students making peace signs, he said.
Rising senior at Santa Fe High School, Callie Trader, said she isn’t bothered by the extra surveillance on campus. He said he’s not sure students will take the robot seriously, and he doesn’t think the robot will change student behavior any more than existing security cameras.
“I think it will be even more fun, totally different,” he added.
Reed Mescheufske, a film studies and acting and drama teacher at Santa Fe High School, said he already feels safe at the school without the new surveillance measures. But the high school is big, and the robot, which he described as a “dog with seven cameras,” could help cover blind spots on campus that are currently unknown, he said.
Other districts are considering robots in the security role. Robert Stokes, co-owner and president of Stokes Robotics, said his company is working with several districts across the country. In most cases, Stokes said, schools will use robots in the classroom to teach students about coding. But in the face of an armed intruder, the robot could take more aggressive actions, pointing a laser beam at a suspect’s chest or using flashing lights to prompt them to drop their weapons.
Humans will be responsible for deciding the robot’s course of action in real time, Stokes said, but they can stay out of the line of fire in the case of an active shooter.
Brad Wade, superintendent of Wyandotte Public Schools in Oklahoma, said the district hopes to introduce four robots from Stokes Robotics in the fall. The district is primarily considering robots with video cameras that could monitor the doors of school buildings, Wade said, although robots that directly confront intruders are not out of the question.
New technology can make campuses appear safer, said Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, an Ohio-based consulting firm. But schools should first focus on teaching students how to report suspicious incidents on campus to a trusted adult, he said.
Trump said, “There’s a difference between doing something that’s impactful and doing something to do something. We have to make sure we master that in kindergarten before looking for PhD solutions to school safety.”
Team First Technologies is operating a robot at Santa Fe High School for the summer, free of charge. Salbidrez said the cost for the 2023-24 school year is estimated to be approximately $60,000 to $70,000. He said the school is still determining whether the robot is worth the investment.
“At this point, I have nothing to say no to,” Salbidrez said. “But I don’t even have enough compelling information to say yes to it.”