Back in sixth grade, I was a robot. Or at least, that’s what I told anyone who asked—in reality, my 11-year-old self was completely human. In 2018, I was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a rare bone cancer that meant nine months of chemotherapy and too many surgeries to count. It was a year punctuated with hospital visits, needle pokes, and days when I felt too nauseated to even look at a plate of food.
And yet, my primary concern was that in my immunocompromised state, I was no longer able to attend school. The hospital was a meager substitute—most of the activities available were coloring books and plastic toys. It was nothing compared to the learning I craved. And the nurses and doctors, although lovely, only made me miss my friends—who often couldn’t visit—more.
I missed the most mundane things, from eating lunches in the crowded cafeteria to playing tic-tac-toe with my friends in the margins of notebooks. Even the most boring classes or the longest assemblies would’ve felt like a blessing. I had loved school before, but in the hospital, all I could think about was how I took it for granted.
Seeing my disappointment, the hospital loaned me a gift: a telepresence robot called the VGo.
The VGo was the best alternative to school I could have gotten. Like a video call on wheels, it attended my classes for me while I maneuvered it from an iPad at home or in the hospital. Not only could I go to class—I could attend clubs, talk to my teachers, and even eat lunch with my friends. I finished sixth grade and was back in person the next year.
My victory was short-lived. A year and a half later, the pandemic began, and it was back to virtual learning.
People often ask me how online classes compared to the VGo, and I can say with confidence that the VGo was light-years ahead of Zoom or Google Meet. Although connection issues and audio problems were prevalent in both, virtual classes were somehow more robotic than an actual robot.