There have been 24 school shootings this year, 16 since August 1st. In an effort to save lives, The Laurel School District in New Castle, collaborated with a private company to build a security robot.

"We want safer schools through technology and robotics," said Greg Walzer, an English and Robotics Class teacher at Laurel High School.

After two and a half years in the making, the S3 Bot is now rolling down the hallways.

It was designed to deter school shooters and was developed in collaboration with Greg Walzer's robotics class at Laurel High School and the Trac Fabrication company in Volant.

"We can go out to competitions and we can earn certificates and trophies but we thought that it would be so much more authentic and beneficial to our district if we were to create a robot that would help save lives," Walzer said. "As we know we have some awful situations in the last couple of decades where people have gone into schools and done some terrible things and we really felt we could stop that. That we could make somebody think twice about coming into a district and doing those horrible things."

"Its main function is basically send out a FaceTime or Skype call as soon as a school goes on lockdown, it relays information to the pertinent authority and school staff so they can make critical decisions in a really bad time if someone were to come in and harm the school," said David Kennedy, President of Trac Fabrication.

"Now you have a device if you will that can be on patrol, give eyes to first responders while not jeopardizing human life and limb," said Leonard Rich, Superintendent of the Laurel School District.

The robot can be deployed in the hallways while classroom doors are locked. It provides real time video to law enforcement and has a two way speaker so whoever is controlling the robot can also communicate with the potential threat.

"It's almost like a 9-1-1 call," Kennedy said. "This actually calls the designated police staff as soon as something happens so instantly the police see what the robot sees."

If necessary, the robot can also engage the threat.

"It has red and blue police style lights, very bright," Kennedy said. "It has LED strobe lights, has LED spotlights. It can also have offensive attachments like tasers, pepper ball system, pepper spray system. Those implements are used to offensively stop someone from harming anyone in the school."

Students at Laurel actually came up with the concept and built the first prototype out of legos.

"It shows the power of critical thinking, the power of what kids can do if and when we challenge them," Rich said.

"We've had kids that have played a huge part in developing the ideas behind this. We're not the only safety robot, there are others but they collect data, they feed that data to the authorities," Walzer said. "David Kennedy has been a huge part of that. He's taken our research and ideas and has met with us so many times and has been such an important part of what we do here at Laurel. The kids have benefitted greatly. I see us continuing to do great things in the future."

Great things that could not only help the Laurel School District, but districts all across the country.

"We feel like we're doing something that is going to be a helpful tool nationwide," Kennedy said.

The long term goal is to have the S3 Bot in schools all over the country and even malls and large businesses that require some sort of security.