We are here and we are many: Using a telepresence robot for shared exploration and learning (and fun)

Mobile remote presence bots (MRP) have emerged as a potential way of addressing the 'tyranny of distance' when having to attend meetings at far away locations. In this contribution we report on how we used an MRP to share with two cohorts of postgraduate students at a regional university the formal ‘conferencing’ and the informal ‘mingling’ that takes place at quality academic conferences and that many would consider essential for effective networking and knowledge sharing. Simultaneously, students were able to experience and explore what it meant to be ‘different’ in a room full of people interacting in ‘regular’ ways, observing the conference attendees reacting to the MRP aka 'ipad on a stick' in ways from genuine interest to forced indifference.