Surrounded by students and staff from both Cargill and HHS, Beverly Exposito from Cargill gives HHS Principal Ronn Roehm a check for $22,000 for the NAO H25 robot.

Thanks to a grant from Cargill, the Hutchinson Career and Technical Education Academy at Hutchinson High School will have a new “employee” in a couple weeks.

Standing in at 23-inches, this newbie will provide instruction in real world robotics to students in several classes at HCTEA.

The $22,000 is being used to purchase an Aldebaran Robotics NAO H25 robot from DEPCO LLC in Pittsburg, Kan., as well as associated software licenses, curriculum and maintenance. Wednesday, a group of local Cargill employees presented Ronn Roehm, HHS principal, with the check for the grant.

The Cargill employees were then given a guided tour of HCTEA by Steve Stacey, electronics and computer networking teacher at the academy. Many of Stacey’s classes will use the robot.

The 23-inch-tall humanoid robot has a multitude of sensors and has the ability to synthesize speech as well as has 25 degrees of freedom for extreme mobility. More information on the robot is available at https://www.aldebaran-robotics.com/en/Discover-NAO/Key-Features/hardware-platform.html.