District 11 Representative Darrel Fincher recently attended the National Conference of State Legislatures to help support post-secondary students become successful citizens.

As the Vice Chair of the Higher Education and Career Tech Board, Representative Fincher said he is getting up to speed in this area. He said he has even learned a thing or two about COBOTS.

These are collaborative robots because they work with humans in concert. A COBOT can just be a mechanical arm that is picking things up and placing things down to do testing. The human that is working with the bot is actually out and about to bring things in for the bot.

Representative Fincher said COBOTS cost approximately $30,000 to $70,000 because they do not stop and they do not tire; they end up replacing low cost things that created low-paying jobs. This eliminate mundane job procedures as well.

Companies that implement COBOTS do not lay people off though. Representative Fincher said they use their employees that worked the lower paying jobs that have been eliminated after the COBOTS are installed. He said the companies invest in training their employees to run the bots. Smaller colleges are also starting to providing COBOT certificates in this effort.