TUG robot chugs through children's hospitals
March 31, 2008
"Express train with an express delivery!" says the train conductor of the newly remodeled TUG robot. TUG was designed to move equipment and toys throughout hospitals, allowing employees to focus more on the patients.
Originally, TUG was a simple gray robot cart. But recently, the robot received a makeover and now looks like a brightly colored train with a conductor wearing an outfit from the store The Gap. San Francisco-based Gensler Architects designed the train cover, supported by a $100,000 grant from Aethon Corp., which manufactures the robot.
The first hospital to use the robot train was the University of California San Francisco Children's Hospital, which adopted the fashion last May. The train's conductor is named after a 7-year-old leukemia patient named Jericho, whose wish for a robot to help him take his cancer medicine was granted by the Greater Bay Area Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Already, about 100 train TUG robots are used at hospitals throughout the US.
The train speaks with the voice of Don LaFontaine, the Hollywood icon who does the voice-overs for many movie previews. "Pardon my caboose," it says when backing up. And "Look out, here I come," when using the elevator.
By carrying supplies such as specialty dressing, oxygen monitors and feeding pumps to nurses, TUG has made it possible for patients to get tests more quickly.
"On its first run, a child was coming from the cafeteria and saw it," said Joel Herbrand, senior systems analyst at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, which started using the train version about a week ago.
"He yelled 'Train!' and ran in front of it and started touching it," Herbran said. "There were a bunch of managers around, and they said 'We guess it's been kid-approved.'"
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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