IvanAnywhere doesn't look like much, but the robot devised by Ivan Bowman makes remote working and interacting with his colleagues much easier, says Matt Walcoff

The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Wednesday September 19 2007

The standfirst above said IvanAnywhere was devised by Ivan Bowman. Although Mr Bowman uses the robot, it was constructed by his colleague Ian McHardy, as the article made clear.

Ivan Bowman spends his days as a programmer at iAnywhere Solutions in Waterloo, Ontario, in much the same way his colleagues do. He writes code, exchanges notes in other developers' offices, attends meetings and hangs out in the kitchen over coffee. About the only thing he can't do is drink the coffee - or touch anything, for that matter. It's not that Bowman doesn't have hands or a mouth; they're just in Halifax, Nova Scotia, along with the rest of his body, about 840 miles (1,350km) away. In fact, it's not really Bowman in the Waterloo office at all. It's IvanAnywhere, a robot Bowman uses to interact with his colleagues in Waterloo from his home office.

"Robot" is a bit of a stretch, actually. IvanAnywhere is basically a coat rack on wheels with attached speakers, camera and touchscreen computer which displays a live shot of Bowman's face from his living room in Nova Scotia.

Doppelganger

But in the three months since IvanAnywhere went online, he has become such a normal part of the third floor at iAnywhere that co-workers barely even notice they're talking to a machine. "We are all so used to Ivan, they don't even give it a second thought," says Glenn Paulley, Bowman's boss and the originator of the IvanAnywhere idea.

When Bowman has a question for a colleague, he doesn't pick up the phone; he uses his joystick to drive his doppelganger to the team member's office. If Paulley needs Bowman's time on a software issue, he calls IvanAnywhere to his office, just as he would with any other employee.

For his part, Bowman uses IvanAnywhere to take part in meetings, even giving presentations with the help of a projector. Every once in a while, he'll motor to the floor's lounge area to look out the window and chat with passersby, much as he would if he were in Waterloo.

Bowman has worked for the Canadian database software company since 1993. Five years ago, when his wife got a job in Halifax, his employers allowed him to follow her east and telecommute. But although Bowman could type out code as well there as he could in Waterloo, he was missing out on the personal give-and-take essential to the flow of ideas. "We were, and we still operate really as, a small software development team where a lot of the collaboration happens face-to-face," Paulley says. "When it comes to coming up with an idea, we're almost always in each other's offices."

IvanAnywhere emerged through a sort of digital evolution. At first, Bowman tried participating in meetings via speakerphone, but suffered from the inability to see his colleagues or what they were scribbling on the whiteboard. Colleagues set up a webcam with a speaker, which they kept in a corner of the office most of the day; it proved to be just as frustrating for Bowman.

"I could hear people in the kitchen talking about something, and occasionally I would have something I wanted to add to that, and not being there in person, I couldn't do anything. I had to wait for them to come over to the desk." The solution to the restraints of telecommuting - and Ivan's genesis - began as a whimsical conversation Paulley had with programmer Ian McHardy two years ago after seeing a television ad for a remote-control toy blimp.

"My first thought to Ian was, 'Wouldn't it be cool if we could string a webcam to the bottom of a blimp, and Ivan would be able to float wherever he wanted,' " Paulley says. Everyone had a good laugh. And then McHardy pointed out that while a blimp would leak and crash into things, a robot might suit the task.

Over the following months, the programmers would bring up the robot idea again when Bowman's absence was causing difficulties. Eventually, Paulley and McHardy began seriously considering whether it would work. Finally, McHardy, who toys with radio-controlled vehicles as a hobby, mounted a webcam, screen and speakers on a radio-controlled truck last winter, creating the first IvanAnywhere prototype.

The model racer didn't turn out to be an appropriate base: it was too short and accelerated too quickly. "The thing would, like, take off like a bat out of hell," Paulley says. But the prototype proved that a robot could be controlled remotely via the internet with an ordinary webcam for vision.

McHardy spent some time over the next few months researching "telepresence", the academic term for systems that allow people to feel as if they are in a remote location. He read about other telepresence projects, such as robots designed at the University of Toronto for hospitalised schoolchildren to attend classes virtually (ryerson.ca/pebbles) and a French-made touchscreen on wheels that serves as a robot tour guide (laas.fr, PDF).

Battery-powered

McHardy found a mobile base with wheels and 24-volt motors sold by SuperDroid Robots, a US-based company. He placed a cardboard box on top containing enough batteries to power the robot for the working day (they need daily recharging), and the wires and gadgetry needed to convert digital instructions to analogue controls. Infrared proximity sensors are meant to prevent the machine from hitting the walls - although Ivan does still crash into a door frame now and then.

A simple aluminum bar almost two metres high sticks up from the base, with the webcam, screen and speakers wrapped on below. McHardy's only concession to aesthetics is a grey foam ball stuck on the robot's top. Paulley's screen, voice and controls all work via Wi-Fi connectivity to the internet.

And in the "flesh"? Being charitable, IvanAnywhere is far more impressive technically than visually. With his exposed wires, masking tape and plastic ties IvanAnywhere makes Robby, the robot from Forbidden Planet, look like Optimus Prime. But Paulley points out that IvanAnywhere is a strictly utilitarian creation: "The goal is not to make Ivan look like the haunted robot that walks and talks," he says. "The idea is to give Ivan a physical presence in the building."

The robot's coming-out party came at a co-worker's anniversary celebration in late May. Some iAnywhere employees who had not been privy to IvanAnywhere's development were shocked to find a computer-on-a-stick hobnobbing with the guests.

"There were a few people who thought this was just freaky," Paulley says. "They were a little taken aback and didn't quite believe themselves that this was actually Ivan, and he was actually there." But as more people heard about the robot on Paulley's team, the third floor became a stop on building tours. The city mayor, university president and local MP have all visited to chat with Bowman.

Overlooked charges

Like the other employees on the floor, IvanAnywhere has his own office of sorts, a notch behind a cubicle with some batteries and a sign reminding the last person in the office to plug the robot in to recharge it before leaving - which they have forgotten at least once. "I was wandering the halls at night looking for somebody to plug me in," Bowman says.

IvanAnywhere has never left the building, but there's no reason why he can't travel; the robot can work anywhere with wireless internet access. Bowman says he would like to attend the next barbecue at Paulley's house, although the team has yet to devise a way for him to be able to eat hot dogs remotely.

Meanwhile, other telecommuting employees at iAnywhere, a subsidiary of Sybase, have expressed interest in getting their own robots, Paulley says. In the future, iAnywhere may look less like a software company and more like an episode of Futurama.

· This article first appeared in The Record newspaper, Waterloo

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