{"id":9494,"date":"2025-03-03T16:46:10","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T16:46:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.specialeffect.org.uk\/?p=9494"},"modified":"2025-03-04T11:19:11","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T11:19:11","slug":"sia-gives-bob-the-robot-the-thumbs-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.specialeffect.org.uk\/news\/sia-gives-bob-the-robot-the-thumbs-up","title":{"rendered":"Sia gives Bob the Robot the thumbs up"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Young<\/p>\n

Sia’s little BubbleBuster robot is proving a lifeline to her education – and a whole new group of friends.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sia\u2019s mum reached out to our BubbleBuster Project<\/a> for support after her daughter was diagnosed with leukaemia in the summer of 2024. Sia is a typical fun-loving eight year-old into Marvel, Harry Potter, sports and music (including Iron Maiden!) and loves school, so her mum was concerned about how she would keep in touch with her new classmates during the initial months of treatment.<\/p>\n

We were able to lend her one of our characterful AV1 telepresence robots which kept her in contact with her lessons and meet her new school friends. She called it \u2018Bob\u2019, and it became her eyes, ears and voice in the classroom, with Sia controlling it remotely at home through a tablet computer.<\/p>\n

We recently received this lovely feedback from the family:<\/p>\n

\u201cBob the robot is now a permanent fixture in her classroom! Sia joins most weeks for a few mornings, participates in all class activities and questions, and even goes out into the playground when her form teacher is on duty, to be around her friends. She absolutely loves it!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSia’s school were on board right from the beginning, which has been brilliant\u2026 and there is nothing but love for Bob from all her classmates and Sia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the BubbleBusters Project started in 2020 we\u2019ve connected over 100 families with schools across the UK, and we look forward to our little loan robots, made by No Isolation<\/a>, being reused again and again to tackle isolation and help many more pupils in the future.<\/p>\n

Find out more about our BubbleBusters<\/a> project here, and become a regular giver to help us support more children with technology here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Image: Sia gives the thumbs up to her robot, and a library image of an AV1 robot on a classroom desk.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sia’s little BubbleBuster robot is proving a lifeline to her education – and a whole new group of friends. Sia\u2019s mum reached out to our BubbleBuster Project for support after her daughter was diagnosed with leukaemia in the summer of 2024. Sia is a typical fun-loving eight year-old into Marvel, Harry Potter, sports and music… View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":9497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSia gives Bob the Robot the thumbs up - SpecialEffect<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.specialeffect.org.uk\/news\/sia-gives-bob-the-robot-the-thumbs-up\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sia gives Bob the Robot the thumbs up - SpecialEffect\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Sia’s little BubbleBuster robot is proving a lifeline to her education – and a whole new group of friends. 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