EMERGING TeCh Chapter 1 A Long History W hen you hear the word robot what comes to mind Maybe you think of a movie like Star Wars where robot characters play important roles as heroes and villains Or maybe there are robots in your favorite video games or comic books Or maybe your first thought isn’t of a story at all Maybe it’s of a robot that you see every day in your own home For a very long time robots existed mostly in peo ple’s imaginations The idea of a machine that could move and think without being directly controlled by a For the movie Star Wars The Force Awakens engineers built a real working robot to play the character of BB-8 44
human operator was considered science fiction Some forward-thinking inventors sketched out designs and even built robot-like machines But even they couldn’t have imagined the variety of incredible robots that exist today Some are tiny while others are enormous Some look a lot like people or animals but many don’t look like anything else you’ve ever seen before They often are used to complete important jobs But there are also many robots that were built just for fun What exactly makes something a robot After all many of the electronic devices people use today are able to think for themselves Some of them can even carry on conversations with users However a com puter or a smartphone is not the same thing as a robot A robot is a mechanical device that has the ability to move around in some way Robots often have motors arms legs or wheels Some can grab things the way hands do Others have faces that can move to form humanlike facial expressions Some can walk or drive around while others are stuck in one place Robots must also be able to operate without humans controlling them This means they must have a computerized brain that can be programmed The simplest robots are programmed to complete the 5 ROBOTS
EMERGING TeCh Machines with Minds of Their Own The study of artificial intelligence will play a big role in building smarter more humanlike robots Modern robots can be programmed to absorb a lot of information and make complicated decisions but they cannot think for themselves and solve problems the way humans can If a robot comes into a situation it isn’t programmed to handle it won’t know what to do It cannot learn new things or come up with ideas on its own Scientists are hoping to change this in the future They want to create robots that can learn new things and adjust their own programming as needed to solve problems This would make them very similar to humans same action over and over again They do their job the same way every time You might see these kinds of robots in factories For example a factory robot might be programmed to attach a certain piece to a car After it is done the car is moved along to another robot which attaches a different piece Other robots are a little bit smarter They might be programmed to observe their surroundings using a variety of sensors For example such robots might be able to detect motion light or temperature The instructions programmed into their computer brains tell them how to react when their sensors detect cer tain changes in the environment For instance maybe a security robot is programmed to patrol an office 6
building at night If its sensors detect motion it can investigate to see if an intruder is nearby The smartest robots are able to make split-second decisions and respond to an incredible number of situations much like people or animals No matter how smart a robot is however it can only do what its creators have programmed it to do The scientists and engineers who are pushing robot technology forward today are building on a long history of knowledge gained from other innovators Robotic arms assemble the pieces of a car at a factory 7 ROBOTS
