TECHNOLOGY AND INDUSTRY Technology is an important part of industry Tech innovations today such as robots satellites and artificial intelligence are as big as changes that happened during the Industrial Revolution that began around 200 years ago In the Industrial Revolution machines were invented that could do the work of ten people even 100 New changes today many using computers help people do new kinds of work and share it around the world Tech changes also mean that robots and other machines can now take over more and more work done by humans The technology industry is a fast-growing one in North America There are over 492,000 technology companies in the United States and about 71,000 in Canada A whopping seven million people in the United States and about 864,000 people in Canada are employed in jobs that use or deal with technology That is 4 percent of all jobs in the United States and 5 6 percent in Canada Among those tech workers are people working in offices in factories and in the field They have all kinds of industrial machines to help People have always been concerned about using robots and tech to replace human workers Some workers worry that robots and other machines will take their jobs Others worry about robots becoming smarter than humans However some very dangerous jobs such as mining deep underground or defusing bombs are best done by machines Sending people to Mars is too In hot and dangerous factories workers can use remote controlled robotic arms called waldoes 4 TECH AND THE WORKFORCE ROBOT CHALLENGES
dangerous at the moment so the Curiosity rover is exploring the planet’s surface Also technology can do work that is boring and tiring A robot is more likely to be something like a forklift with a camera and a computer than the fancy androids in science fiction movies Industrial robots are made to do a few tasks not to be people The science fiction writer Isaac Asimov imagined Three Laws of Robotics These laws said a robot could not harm a human must follow orders and must protect itself That would be a good start for any future tech Mechanical arms make the same movements over and over to do the simplest jobs on assembly lines 5
MAKING THINGS Factories have been around for at least 200 years In the past they relied on machinery made with heavy materials such as iron and steel Now there are new tough but lightweight and highly adaptable materials such as graphene Special metal alloys work better than traditional metals They are lighter and do not rust New strong durable and easily recycled plastics can replace many metal parts That saves both money and energy Want to make a model of your own invention There might be a 3-D printer at your town’s library New robot assistants use software to learn how to find items and identify them They learn from experience Miso Robotics has developed Flippy a burger-flipping robot Flippy is already used in a chain of burger restaurants in California Like a human Flippy can learn from its mistakes Even so burger bots cannot do everything yet Human hands still have to deliver the burger to the customer Where robots work alongside regular workers this is called cobotics In the past big machines have been needed to make factory products Three-dimensional 3-D printing is changing the way things are made A 3-D printer takes an image from a computer and turns it into a plastic object Inventors can use 3-D printing to produce and test prototypes or early versions of a product When a 3-D printer can make objects right on-site there is no need for production lines and stores of supplies 6 SMARTER ROBOTS PRINTING PRODUCTS
Industrial designers can now see and test a product using computer graphics laid onto the real product This is called augmented reality AR It allows you to see your product from every angle even from the inside You learn how it connects to other products That way you can make sure the product is working well and efficiently Put on a pair of Microsoft HoloLens goggles and you can even interact with holograms of your design or product Microsoft calls this mixed reality Many products are built in a truly connected factory that links together all aspects of how things are made and distributed Thousands of sensors in factory equipment send information to computers that can figure out whether something is being built efficiently Products fitted with sensors can then be followed on computers as they make their journey to a local store or anywhere in the world This connection is called the Internet of things The astronaut Scott Kelly wears a pair of Microsoft HoloLens goggles in a laboratory on the International Space Station ISS 7 Techno PLANET
