How To Babysit A Robot

Forces teenagers are learning real-world babysitting skills with the help of robots.

The Army Welfare Service in Germany offers a weekend of nappy changing, feeding and much crying as the culmination of a ten-week babysitting course. 

The robo-babies all eat, sleep and cry exactly like their real-life counterparts, as 12-year old Takhiyya has discovered:

“After it’s had a drink obviously it’s going to burp and then after that it’s probably going to poop so you’re going to have to change it”

The aim of the course is to produce competent babysitters, Emma Twyford, Community Support Workers explains:

“I make the point of calling them babies throughout the course. They are not dolls, they’re not toys. They are babies and that just reinforces it when they are baby-sitting that it’s a little human being that they are looking after.”

The Army Welfare Service’s robot babysitting course in Germany remains a pioneering venture but other AWS branches may eventually offer similar training.