{"id":770883,"date":"2026-07-18T21:10:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T21:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/770883\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T21:10:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T21:10:15","slug":"humanoid-robot-sally-to-join-seneca-nation-k-12-classrooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/770883\/","title":{"rendered":"Humanoid robot &#8216;Sally&#8217; to join Seneca Nation K-12 classrooms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>They\u2019re bot for teacher.<\/p>\n<p>A rural upstate New York school district will be one of the first in the nation to bring a humanoid robot into the classroom. <\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salamancany.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Salamanca City Central School District<\/a>, located on Seneca Nation territory, will be introducing $57,000 AI-powered \u201cSally\u201d in high school classes in September as a teaching assistant, it announced last week.<\/p>\n<p>The bot named Sally will have brown hair, latex skin, and is customized with a Western New York accent. realbotix<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSally\u201d will have brown hair, latex skin and will be able to move its arms and hands \u2014 but won\u2019t be able to cruise around the classroom since her legs don\u2019t move.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s exciting but also a bit nerve wracking,\u201d superintendent Dr. Mark Beehler told The Post of the first of its kind pilot program, a partnership with Las Vegas-based company Realbotix Corporation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot everyone is open to much change in education\u2026There was a point in time where people argued \u2018Why do teachers need email accounts?\u2019 or \u2018Do we really need to have the internet in school?\u2019 This is the next iteration of that. And the reality is, AI is already in schools,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>For now, Sally is scheduled to be in  11th and 12th graders at Salamanca High School where she will take a byte out of coding, robotic, and artificial intelligence classes.<\/p>\n<p>To make Sally more approachable, she\u2019ll feature a western New York accent \u2014 similar to Buffalo native Gov. Kathy Hochul \u2014 at the behest of the school district.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t really hear the accent. We think it sounds neutral,\u201d Beehler joked.<\/p>\n<p>The Realbotix model in Salamanca High School will be seated and ready to assist high schoolers <br \/>in comprehending Artificial Intelligence, coding, and robotics.<\/p>\n<p>The bot, which uses about the same amount of electricity as a laptop, will assistant students and teachers in classes that are  in the Woz Ed Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics courses, which was developed by the founder of <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/05\/24\/us-news\/apple-co-founder-steve-wozniaks-graduation-speech-on-ai-sparks-cheers-actual-intelligence\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Apple Steve Wozniak<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In September she will be available for only coding, robotics, and AI classes, according to Beehler.<\/p>\n<p>School officials vowed that \u201cSally\u201d will \u201cnever\u201d usher out teachers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Realbotix educational robot will never replace teachers, staff members, or meaningful human interaction,\u201d the district said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>The Realbotix clankers may be advanced and fitted with artificial intelligence, but they will never replace humans, the school district assured. Realbotix<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInstead, it serves as another instructional tool that educators can use to engage students, reinforce classroom learning, and spark curiosity about emerging technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There will be many guardrails on Sally which operates on an off-line, closed AI system that is designed not to give answer, but to respond with prompts to students questions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt will provide data but will encourage the student to think for themselves and demonstrate a comprehension of the material,\u201d said Beeher.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStart your day with all you need to know\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"inline-module__cta\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMorning Report delivers the latest news, videos, photos and more.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSally\u201d will not collect any personal information, record any video or audio, and will not transmit any data to Realbotix, the superintendent assured.<\/p>\n<p>The more advanced $125,000 full-bodied F-Series model from Realbotix stands on its own two legs, but still requires wheels to get around.<\/p>\n<p>The city of Salamanca is on the Allegany Indian Reservation, which is roughly 60 miles south of Buffalo, and is governed by the Seneca Nation of Indians. <\/p>\n<p>The district has approximately 1,400 registered students, with over 32% identifying as American Indian, according to the state Education Department. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"They\u2019re bot for teacher. A rural upstate New York school district will be one of the first in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":770884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,517,181,507,5871,7500,154,2540,232,74,5872,194],"class_list":["post-770883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-apple","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-metro","tag-native-americans","tag-public-schools","tag-robots","tag-schools","tag-technology","tag-upstate-new-york","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/770884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}