  This paper argues that training of future Roboticists and Robotics Engineers
in Computer Science departments, requires the extensive direct work with real
robots, and that this educational mission will be negatively impacted when
access to robotics learning laboratories is curtailed. This is exactly the
problem that Robotics Labs encountered in early 2020, at the start of the Covid
pandemic. The paper then turns to the description of a remote/virtual robotics
teaching laboratory and examines in detail what that would mean, what the
benefits would be, and how it may be used. Part of this vision was implemented
at our institution during 2020 and has been in constant use since then. The
specific architecture and implementation, as far as it has been built, is
described. The exciting insight in the conclusion is that the work that was
encouraged and triggered by a pandemic seems to have very positive longer-term
benefits of increasing access to robotics education, increasing the ability of
any one institution to scale their robotics education greatly, and potentially
do this while reducing costs.
