Korean schools to deploy robot chaperones

Teenage lusts curbed by remorseless German technology

By Lewis Page • Get more from this author

Posted in Public Sector, 1st June 2007 12:07 GMT

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Korean educational authorities have a bold new plan to curb the ever-rising tide of teenage lustfulness. Students at a middle school (ages 13-15) in southern Seoul are to be watched by robots from this week in a trial security project.

The robot in question, the OFRO, was designed in Germany but is made in Korea by DU Robo. It has already tackled soccer hooligans at last year's World Cup in Germany.

According to DU Robo, the use of robots to patrol an educational institution is a world first. The machines will protect youngsters from violence and "other dangers", according to reports. Such as those attendant on yielding to unbridled lust, apparently.

"One possible scenario is that OFRO will alert officials when it detects someone trying to seduce a student," DU Robo CEO Kang Jung-won told the Korea Times.

"Then, teachers will send a warning to the perpetrator through a loudspeaker," he said. If the youthful lothario failed to comply, or if the situation involved an intruder, human security guards could be despatched to the scene.

Equipped with a camera and a microphone, OFRO also "provides visual files to officials or teachers at schools on a real-time basis". It can be manually controlled, or patrol a route on automatic using GPS.

Fleet-footed seducers may be able to elude the querulous duenna-droid without too much diffculty, however, as it can move at no more than five km/h. But then, the elderly ladies who traditionally performed the role of chaperone at Georgian dances could seldom go much faster. ®

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