Meet Ropot, the Cute Honda Robot That Walks Your Kid to School

That robot is called Ropot, and is a cute, definitely child-friendly device that straps onto the backpack strap, right on the kid’s shoulder. It is, if you wish to get poetic about it, the most literal interpretation of a guardian angel sitting on your shoulder.

According to Jalopnik, Ropot serves to help children navigate daily traffic in complete safety. In order for it to work, it first needs to travel that route in the presence of an adult, with the adult saving predetermined crosswalks. This way, when the child arrives at the crossing on his or her own, they will be reminded to look both ways before crossing the street. Ropot buzzes to alert the child whenever the need be, including when there’s traffic coming up from behind them.

The same report notes that kids often walk on their own to school in Japan and that seven-year-olds are particularly prone to becoming pedestrian victims due to a combination of their inexperience or inattention and their comparatively narrower field of vision. Ropot also has GPS, so the adult can check the child’s progress on their phone, and thus breathe that huge sigh of relief when they see him or her reaching the school’s gates.

“It’s true that the safety performance of cars is improving day by day. However, I was shocked to find out about the Devil’s 7-year-old problem,” Daisuke Kiryu of Honda R&D, who came up with the idea for Ropot, says of the traffic safety robot. “At the peak, many small children are victims of traffic accidents. I myself had children of that age, so I strongly felt that I had to do something from a different angle than the car. This was the catalyst for the development of Ropot."

Here is Ropot in action.