VIDEO: Japan's Robot Teacher

Imagine coming to class and finding C-3PO — the "Star Wars" android — ready to take roll. In May, students at a Japanese elementary school had a parallel experience when they came to class one day and found Saya, the face robot, sitting at the front of the room.

Saya can express six emotions — surprise, fear, disgust, anger, happiness and sadness — and can open her mouth, widen her eyes, arch her eyebrows and shout "be quiet." However, unlike C-3PO, Saya is shockingly lifelike, with brown hair, pink lipstick, rubber skin and a skirt suit.

Hiroshi Kobayashi, a mechanical engineering professor at the Tokyo University of Science, developed Saya in 2004 to be a university receptionist. Kobayashi said robots need humans, and Saya — who is operated via remote control by a human watching the teacher's interactions through a camera — was created "just for fun."

"Students really enjoy her, even if she is controlled manually; they become interested in technology,” Kobayashi said.  "I think she has a very important educational effect. After class, some students mentioned they want to develop robots in future."

Other recent robotic developments include Honda's ASIMO, which doesn't have the humanlike features of Saya, but can run, walk on uneven surfaces, climb stairs and grasp objects. It can also respond to simple voice commands, recognize a select group of individuals and avoid moving obstacles.

Robotics engineering and research is gaining popularity in universities and K-12 schools; the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, for example, has a handful of projects underway, including medical application technologies. One project is a miniature mobile robot called the HeartLander, which is designed to facilitate minimally invasive therapy to the beating heart’s surface.

At the K-12 level, schools can participate in the BEST Robotics Inc. competition, which encourages students to pursue careers in engineering, science and technology through participation in a sports-like robotics competition.

Perhaps one day, robots like Saya will teach students how to build, create and perfect her very own kind.

*This story is from Converge magazine's Summer 2009 issue.