Starting in late September, students may have noticed an unfamiliar face roaming the hallways and even speaking to them. This face has no name, nor is it human — it is State High’s new hallway-cleaning robot.
State High custodial maintenance supervisor Penny Leigey is a part of the team behind the new addition to State High’s cleaning staff. The district purchased the CenaBot, an AI-assisted cleaning robot, for $41,160 with the goal of making custodians jobs more efficient. Leigey described the impact so far.
“[The robot] hasn’t actually been out at night yet. We’re still in the programming process and waiting for some supplies for it so that we can run it daily,” Leigey said. “But I’ve run it during the day and it’s a tremendous help at keeping the hallways clean.”
In addition to helping the custodial staff, the robot has caught the attention of students and staff alike. While the robot has no face or name, it has a pair of striking green lizard eyes and a monotonic Siri-esque voice.
“The eyes on the machine were [from] the first day I ran the machine down on the ground floor, a teacher had come out and said, ‘You need eyes on there?’ And she brought this set of lizard eyes out to us. And of course, we put them on the machine every time we run it,” Leigey said.
Leigey described the student’s response to the robot.
“There’s been a lot of good response. We see students frequently taking pictures and videos, and we’ve had teachers also do the same thing. They’ll stop and question, you know, ‘What’s that doing?’ They like the fact that it talks to them. If you get in front of the machine, it will stop moving. And after a couple seconds, it will tell you that it’s working there, could you please step aside,” Leigey said.
In general, students have been respectful towards the new machine in their halls. “We’ve had no issues with anybody trying to stop the machine intentionally or do anything to it, which is great,” Leigey said.
Currently, the machine is not running to its full extent, as the custodial staff hopes to get a replacement brush to help the robot run more smoothly. However, the robot will not be down for long, and the school has plans for when the machine is back and running.
“I’m hoping to have what I need before Halloween so we can start running it more often,” Leigey said. “And as far as the decorating the machine, my employees want to make it fun for everybody. So for holidays, we have some plans to decorate the machine up and let it roam the hallway so everybody can see and so it’ll be fun.”
Along with decorating the robot, Leigey is hoping to involve the student body through the process of naming the machine. Student government president Luca Snyder commented on the student government’s role in naming the machine.
“Student government is going to put out, with the help of Penny and Mrs. Tobias, a poll for the entire school, so that we can get a name that is commonly loved among the school community,” Snyder said.
Snyder elaborated on the benefits of naming the robot and having the robot in the school community.
“I think it is a fun way for us to not be afraid of this robot that’s around our school. I think it kind of just makes it more of like a silly, beloved thing that’s part of our community, if the robot can be part of our community,” Snyder said.
