Pepper brings ‘age of robotics’ to York College

Pepper, who has the ability to recognise faces and basic human emotions, will now be assisting our students in their understanding of robotics, coding and real-world robotics applications.

David McNorton, Deputy Head of Digital Technologies, said: “Society is moving into the age of robotics. The advances being made are exponential in terms of what can be achieved. However, we are still in the early stages and Pepper is one of the first humanoid robots.

“This is really valuable for our students because they are the ones who will be working with this technology in the years to come. It’s going to be a big part of the curriculum here – particularly T levels.”

Manufactured by Japanese company Softbank Robotics, Pepper is designed for human interaction, and could soon be playing a role in College life.

“What we will be doing is learning how to code the robot. One of the first things we’d like Pepper to do is greet people at open events. He gets a great reaction from people. Once they begin interacting with him they immediately seem to bond.”