Robots can be used to allow people to visit a place without actually traveling to the place. The robot provides the eyes and ears and ability to talk, and ability to move around from place to place.

If such a robot was placed in an intentional community, people could visit the community "virtually", via Internet. People could sit in the comfort of their own homes and control a robot that would travel around the community and allow them to communicate with people there, see what is happening, sit in on meetings, etc.

This of course is not as good as actually visiting the community, but on the other hand, it doesn't waste fuel getting the people there, or require them to quit their jobs to go there, or other things like that.

Another approach, would be to have multiple webcams, which show the community in various locations. Perhaps a combination of the two approaches might be a good idea.

These devices would rapidly improve the whole community movement, I believe.

I forget what they call that kind of robot, but I know there are open source versions. In future, I expect my company will make such robots also, which will also be open source, but much cheaper than making your own.

Tony