Two Baxter robots have joined the School of Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire (www.herts.ac.uk).

They are able to interact with people and have ‘learnt’ how to play a game of draughts.

One robot is used for undergraduate teaching and the other for post-graduate research.

The robots — 3ft tall, with two arms and an animated face — were built by US-based Rethink Robotics, a start-up company founded in 2008 by Rodney Brooks, who is a former director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Life Laboratory.

Michael Walters, a senior lecturer in the School of Computer Science and a specialist in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI), said: “As Baxter is a safe robot that requires no cage, we can have him in the classroom alongside the students and not have to worry about accidents; that is especially important when you are looking after a class of around 40 undergraduates.

"As far as we are aware, this is the first time that robots of this kind have been used to teach undergraduates in the UK.”

The computer school also includes the Adaptive Systems Research Group (ASRG), renowned for its research into cognitive robotics and service robots. Within the group, there is a specific emphasis on the study of HRI.

Dr Walters said: “In terms of HRI research, we are one of the major groups in the world. We have around 30 post-grads and academics who are members of the ASRG and are engaged in research at the moment.

"It is a multi-disciplinary group: we have mathematicians, engineers, computer scientists, roboticists, psychologists, Artificial Intelligence and cognitive-science staff working on a variety of research projects.

“We are using the reputation and expertise of the ASRG to build up the content of our undergraduate courses. The undergraduates start off with small mobile robots — they even get to take them home and can become quite attached to them — so they can learn the principles of programming and control before moving onto larger systems such as Baxter.”