Get ready for the robot invasion -- of our classrooms

The idea of using robots in classrooms to teach our children is unsettling to many people. Fumihide Tanaka of the University of Tsukuba's Department of Intelligent Interaction Technologies, however, uses a technique that cleverly allays fears of robot superiority. He uses robots in the role of novices in the classroom. "Our solutions do not replace humans but help humans to feel, think and act," he says. Rather than the conventional roles of the robots as the teachers or caretakers of children, in Tanaka's method, this is reversed.