A robot is set to attend school for a 10-year-old Maryland girl while she undergoes cancer treatment in New York for five weeks.
"She's here, she's with us and she's going to engage in the school day, just like the rest of them," said Douglas Robbins, principal of Poolesville Elementary School,
according to NBC Washington. "As they see that robot in the hallways, that's Peyton."
Peyton Walton reported that her classmates helped raise the $3,000 for PAVS — Peyton's Awesome Virtual Self — which consists of an iPad set atop a wheeled base. She controls it over the Internet.
"I try not to crash into walls," Peyton said.
"It's technology — what 10-year-old doesn't love technology?" said Lynn Schaeber, Peyton's mother. "She has control over her day-to-day activities in school, whereas cancer takes that from her, and really isolates her."
The robot, made by a company called Double Robotics, will livestream both the sights and sounds to and from Peyton's medical
facilities and her school, The Associated Press reported.
Double Robotics has helped a number of schoolchildren just like Peyton attend school virtually when they can't be there in person.
Among their success cases is Jasmine, of Newport, Maine, who uses it regularly due to her limited mobility.
A 16-year-old boy in Pennsylvania also used the robot after his leg was broken in a car crash.