Rural NY School District Will Be One of First to Bring Humanoid Robot Into Classroom
On July 24, Salamanca City Central School District announced that it’s pausing the humanoid robot and avatar program while school officials “work through enhanced student data privacy agreements.” Read more about the development here.
Key takeaways
- The Trump administration announced on July 28 2026 that the Federal Communications Commission will bar imports of new Chinese humanoid and quadruped robots, as well as related power inverters, citing national‑security risks to the U.S.
- AI build‑out and targeting firms such as Unitree that hold a large share of the global market.
- In the aviation sector, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines joined Southwest in prohibiting human‑like robotic devices from aircraft cabins and checked baggage, a policy rolled out in late June and early July to address safety concerns over heavy‑duty batteries.
- Meanwhile, Chinese automaker BYD confirmed it will unveil its first humanoid robot in August at a “Di Space” venue, planning an open platform and eventual deployment of robot sales advisors in its stores.
- On the education front, a rural New York school district paused its plan to install a Realbotix humanoid robot in classrooms after state officials, teachers and community members raised privacy and safety objections.
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On July 24, Salamanca City Central School District announced that it’s pausing the humanoid robot and avatar program while school officials “work through enhanced student data privacy agreements.” Read more about the development here.
When students return to school this fall in the Salamanca City Central School District in Western New York, a new kind of teacher will be ready to greet them. The small, rural district located on the Seneca Nation reservation is set to be one of the first in the country to put a humanoid robot in a classroom. It will not replace the classroom teacher, but is programmed to provide learning support to both students and educators. The classroom marks a new venture for Realbotix, a Toronto-based robotics company formerly known as Tokens.com, that helped customers use cryptocurrency to rent “digital land” in the Metaverse. In April 2024, the company acquired Simulcra, the Las Vegas parent company behind RealDoll, which has spent decades creating hyperrealistic sex dolls and later expanded into sex robots that remain on the market today. At a board meeting last month, the Cattaraugus County school district agreed to purchase the robot from Realbotix, a tech company, along with an artificial intelligence teacher’s assistant program allowing students to interact with an avatar of the robot on laptops.
“This deployment in a working school district represents a landmark moment for both AI and humanoid robotics,” said Andrew Kiguel, CEO of Realbotix, which is currently building the robot. “Salamanca marks the beginning of a new era where humanoid robots and intelligent AI assistants become standard tools in STEM education.”
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