Robot connects Shedd Aquarium with Geneva senior citizens
Water lapped, lapped, lapped ...
And then a beluga whale flashed past, eliciting a chorus of "oohs" and "aahs" of amazement.
Same thing with the dolphins, as they shot up and dove down during a show last Friday at the John G. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.
And then there were the oh-so-cute penguins, which the crowd watched waddle around until a keeper chased them in to the water so she could clean their rocky perch.
The visitors were nowhere near the acrylic walls of the Abbott Oceanarium and the Polar Play Zone at the museum, though. They watched it all from a meeting room in the GreenFields of Geneva retirement home, via a live connection with a BeamPro telepresence robot.
As two guides from Shedd explained the exhibits, Kat Schumpert, GreenFields life-enrichment manager, used a tablet computer and the BeamPro app to move the robot right, left and closer to give her clients an up-close look. The Beam kind of looks like an iPad on a stick, on a rolling base. In-person visitors at the museum were nonchalant; one little girl waved, as the Beam's screen displayed the group of GreenFields residents.
The Shedd is testing the BeamPro as part of its effort to accommodate people of all abilities. The GreenFields residents who visited Friday are memory-impaired, and would likely be overwhelmed by a daylong trip, according to Schumpert.
"We wanted to find a different way to engage with residents," Schumpert said. "Unfortunately, we cannot bring a beluga whale" to the Geneva home.
She reached out to the Shedd five months ago for ideas, and jumped on the BeamPro opportunity when she was invited.
The visit lasted one hour.
The residents were mostly silent. One asked if the museum had trouble getting enough food for the big whales (the answer was "no," and that it cost more to feed its sea otters than the whales.) They were impressed at the money John G. Shedd donated to build the aquarium on the eve of the Great Depression. They laughed at a guide's jokes.
GreenFields uses technology regularly to connect residents with the world at large. It has used Skype, Zoom and Ewow to visit museums, national parks and a research station in Antarctica.