Central High School students meet 'Reggie' — their new robotic mascot

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Central High School has a new mascot. But Reggie isn't an animal, or a human. In fact, he isn't even a "he."

He's an "it." Reggie is a robot.

The Spotbot 3.0.0 looks like a dog. Sort of. With four legs and a trunk, the robot can sit, stay and run — but also dance and compute complex mathematical equations.

Reggie was introduced to the students and staff in Central High School's gymnasium Wednesday morning. He — or "it," rather — made quite an impression.

"Welcome to the historic Central High School," said Principal Tamela Compton. "We will mark history as being the only high school with a Spotbot."

Students introduced the...robot dog.

"Reggie is a quadruped robot," explained Khenai Hamilton-Sloss, a student. "The four legs make him highly mobile."

"It moves really funny," said student Jade Echemendia Benitez. "It runs around...walks around...it's got different speeds."

"A Spotbot is a robot that has different sensors than other robots," Hamilton-Sloss said. "With this bot, it's all programs. It's connected to an app."

Benitez said she was surprised by the robot's sheer size.

"It's actually, like, really big," she said. "I thought it was going to be smaller. It's really big."

Both students recognized the opportunities made possible by the school's new mascot. They said it's not just a toy. It's a career opportunity.

"A lot of schools don't get the opportunity to work with robots already," Hamilton-Sloss said. "I want to get into software engineering and software designing."

The students say they hope to use Reggie to help them carry things around the building.

"We get set an example for the rest of Jefferson County, and anybody else who wants to, like, really work on some bots," Benitez said.

That's the important thing, according to Hamilton-Sloss: learning programming and robotics to the degree that they can pass the skills on to others.

"Us getting this opportunity to learn more to teach other students and other companies -- it's just really important," she said.

But of course, there is time for fun, too.

"He's jumping around. He's having fun with people," said Hamilton-Sloss. "And I'm just, like, 'It's impossible!'"