High-tech helper makes her debut:
Just like in The Jetsons,' Rosie the robot keeps house at
USA Children's and Women's Hospital
By JEAN LAKEMAN HELMS, Staff Reporter, Mobile Register, Aug. 15, 1998.
Section 1B, 3B
Rosie Timbers works 24 hours a day, seven days
a week, carrying
laboratory samples at USA Children's and Women's Hospital.
Rosie's a little slow-moving and not very talkative,
but she's
unfailingly polite, never complaining despite the job's utter
lack of holidays, weekends or sick leave or even time to sleep.
How can Rosie do it? The answer's on the hospital
ID tag hanging
around her neck?
Name: Rosie Timbers. Title: Robot.
Rosie was manufactured by HelpMate Robotics Inc.
and purchased
with money from Log A Load For Kids, a community service project
of the Alabama Forestry Association and the Alabama Loggers'
Council.
Hospital employees held a contest to name the
robot: Rosie for
the cartoon robot on the television series, The Jetsons,'' and
Timbers to honor the Log A Load program, which has given the hospital
almost $230,000 in the past three years.
Local Log A Load chairman Doug Roberts was on
hand Friday as hospital
officials unveiled Rosie and put her straight to work fetching
and carrying.
Rosie doesn't replace human hospital-transport
workers, said Becky
DeVillier, assistant administrator of the hospital. She just hauls inanimate
objects so her flesh-and-blood colleagues can transport patients.
How do patients feel when they see a robot lumbering
down the hallway?
The kids just love it,'' DeVillier said.
Rosie's one smart robot, too; she can summon
an elevator, direct
it to the right floor and open the hospital's automatic doors. She
knows where to stop to pick up samples: Sensor strips on the ceiling
help her find her way around. Other sensors on her 600-pound body''
warn her of objects in her path.
Cool,'' said 9-year-old Johnny, a patient in
the fifth-floor pediatrics
unit, as Rosie rolled off the elevator and stopped by the nurses' station to
collect the morning's lab samples. A candy-striper opened the tray compartment
on Rosie's back, put in the samples and closed the door.
Thank you,'' Rosie said in her female voice.
A few minutes
later, she spoke again. I have completed my mission.'' Then,
I am about to move. Please stand clear.''
As Rosie turned to roll away, Johnny urged
on by hospital officials
hesitantly stepped in front of the robot. She stopped instantly, AVOIDING
OBSTACLES'' flashing on her display panel.
Whoa,'' said Johnny, obviously impressed. Later,
Johnny
told a reporter he'd like to have a robot like Rosie at home.
From pediatrics, Rosie took the elevator to the
second-floor intensive-care
nursery. Silently, as though on tiptoe, she rolled past the rooms where the
tiniest, sickest babies are cared for. She collected her samples, thanked the
nurse, and rolled silently away.
Rosie will operate independently, but for her
first official
day on the job, she was followed by Katie Orr, the laboratory
director.
Ms. Orr takes much of the responsibility for Rosie's care,
causing
some of her colleagues to joke that she is Rosie's mother.''
Well, at 600 pounds, she was a healthy baby,''
Ms. Orr said as she
trundled out Rosie's 200-pound rechargeable battery. The batteries must be
changed every 12 hours, she said, and take about 12 hours to recharge.
Rosie is capable of carrying meal trays, bed
linens and charts,
DeVillier said, although for now, she's only carrying lab items.
Rosie has a separate set of trays for non-lab items to prevent the
spread of infection, DeVillier said.
At the end of Rosie's official debut, hospital
officials and
Log A Load workers celebrated in the board room with a carrot cake
decorated to look like Rosie. Rosie, meanwhile, was down the hall,
setting off on her 11 a.m. rounds.
But as usual, Rosie didn't seem to mind.
Photo
MIKE KITTRELL /Staff Photographer Rosie
Timbers the robot spins around
under the bright lights of news cameras at the USA Children's and Women's
Hospital on Friday.
This article reproduced with special permission
from the Mobile Register.
