Survivor Buddy, a rescue robot that was invented by Texas A&M University computer science and engineering professor Dr. Robin R. Murphy and her colleagues at Stanford University, will be part of National Robotics Week at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

Survivor Buddy, a pet project of computer science and engineering professor Dr. Robin R. Murphy, will be featured during National Robotics Week at the Smithsonian.

National Robotics Week, an initiative of the Congressional Robotics Caucus, aims to educate the public about how robotics technology impacts society, past, present and future.

The week will kick off Tuesday (April 5) with an event at the museum that will include a demonstration of Survivor Buddy.  Texas A&M students Vasant Srinivasan and Aaron Rice will be at Tuesday's event, while Murphy, who is currently in Japan assisting with the Fukushima reactor robots, is scheduled to be interviewed during the event through the video capabilities of Survivor Buddy.

National Robotics Week will conclude on April 16, and Survivor Buddy will again be part of the demonstrations that will take place in the Lemelson Center for the Study of Invention and Innovation's Spark!Lab at the museum.

A&M students Jessica Gonzales and Zachary Henkel will be on hand on the 16th to take part in the demonstrations.

Survivor Buddy is a search-and-rescue robot designed to aid disaster victims and specializes in robot-human interaction. It also helps keep and injured or a trapped victim calm, and enables communication directly to the rescue team as well as to family and the Internet.