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Spotlight: Robotics
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 What is a Robot?
This is not so easy to answer! Webster’s Dictionary says: A machine that looks like a human being and has the
capacity to perform human tasks.
By this definition, are you a robot? You can see why it’s hard to define a robot. Some other attempts:
A bunch of motors controlled by a programmable computer. (Karl Brown)
An intelligent connection of perception to action. (from the book “Mobile Robots” by Jones, Seiger and Flynn)
This last definition points to three basic things that all robots must have: sensors to detect something about
"the world," processors to handle the information from the sensors and decide what to do, and
actuators to act upon "the world." Note how "the world" fits at both ends of this cycle.
Sensors that Sense
We say that humans have five senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell & taste. We use these “external senses” to learn about the world around us. Robots may need devices that work like each of these senses: cameras for eyes, microphones for ears, etc. What do you think would work for a robot’s nose? What about a robot tongue?
We also have other senses like balance, position, direction, and “well being.” These help us know our own internal condition and place in the world. A robot may need senses like these to manage its operation. Walking robots need a sense of balance or they’d fall right over!
Processors that Process
Living creatures have brains and nervous systems that perform amazing feats of processing so they can “understand” the information collected by their senses.
In general, the better a creature can collect, process, study, understand and act upon the data from its senses, the greater the “intelligence” we think of that creature (or machine) as having.
Robots may use computers or electronic circuits as “brains”. The frontiers of “artificial intelligence” and “machine learning” have many discoveries to make before robots can match the abilities of even simple living creatures.
Actuators that Act
A robot that can’t move or respond would not be a robot! Just as living creatures use muscles to move, to make noise and to interact, robots need ways to move too.
They may use motors, solenoids (those things that flip the paddles in a pinball machine), speakers that beep, lights that blink, and exotic materials like shape memory alloys, piezoelectric plastics and magnetostrictive ceramics
convert electricity to motion, and can be used by robots too.
What are some robots already in use?
Robots generally perform tasks too dangerous or tedious for humans. Robotic arms, for example, help build cars. Once programmed through a computer, the robotic arms do their job reliably every time. A human needs to program the computer and maintain the robot, or it can’t do anything!
NASA’s Sojourner rover which explored Mars in 1996 could drive around or over unexpected objects without human input. That’s a good thing too, since radioed commands needed several minutes to reach Sojourner from Earth. By the time Sojourner got instructions to turn, it might have already crashed!
Robots and humans living together?
In futuristic movies, robots sometimes try to destroy their human creators. Starting in 1942, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) created rules for the robots in his stories. According to Asimov, robots should be programmed to follow the “Three Laws of Robotics”:
- First Law: A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- Second Law: A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders conflict with the First law.
- Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
What other rules might you add to these laws?
What about robots in the future?
Future robots might be capable of amazing things, such as building copies of themselves, or understanding the world around them so that they can react in ways not specifically programmed.
Robots could also become household servants, responsible for cooking or taking the kids to soccer practice. One of the greatest challenges still facing robot inventors lies in understanding the amazing abilities of our brains – how we think, feel, learn and understand the universe around us.
Robot Facts
- Czech writer Karel Capek (SHAW-peck) created the word “robot” in 1920 for his play called “R.U.R.: Rossum’s Universal Robots”, in which artificial workers eventually overthrow their creators. The Czech word robota means “forced work or labor.”
 The first robot in a movie appeared in the 1926 classic silent film “Metropolis” about a mechanized society, and an evil inventor that creates a robot from a charismatic human woman named Maria. To some the robot Maria resembles C-3PO. What do you
think?- Humans have sent dozens of robotic spacecraft to explore our solar system, and many have landed and sent back pictures from the surfaces of other worlds. Here are a few of the “firsts” for robot explorers:
- First soft landing on the Moon: Surveyor 1 (USA), June 2, 1966
- First images from surface of Venus: Venera 10 (USSR), Oct. 25, 1975
- First images from surface of Mars: Viking 1 (USA), July 20, 1976
Robotics Web Sites
An online robotics exhibit from San Jose's Tech Museum
www.thetech.org/exhibits_events/online/robots/
Web resources for robotics enthusiasts
www.Robohoo.com
The San Francisco Robotics Society of America -- a local robot club
www.robots.org
Robot creator Hans Moravec’s vision of future robots
www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/robots/moravec.html
NASA’s “Cool Robot of the Week” site (note no “www” in address)
ranier.hq.nasa.gov/telerobotics_page/coolrobots.html
Lots of cool robotics links from Carnegie Mellon University
www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/rjg/millibots/millibot_roboticlinks.html
On-line source for robot kits, books, parts & resources for robot builders
www.RobotStore.com
 "Weekend Spotlight: Robotics" at CSSC is sponsored by
Mondo-Tronics' Robot Store.
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