DESIGNING ROBOTS ANKI Anki is a robotics company based in San Francisco California It was founded by three graduates of Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute It is best known for its toy robot Cozmo Anki’s president and founder is Hanns Tappeiner He said Cozmo is like a Pixar robot come to life There’s a good reason for this Anki hired former employees from Pixar the animation studio behind movies such as WALL-E They also hired a group of animators to design Cozmo’s movement and behavior Anki tries to make robots that don’t seem like robots Not playing with Cozmo for a week should feel like not playing with your puppy for a week said Boris Sofman another Anki founder making a noise designed to sound like laughter DIFFERENT KINDS OF ROBOTS When most people think of robots they think of robots that are made to work Some of these robots work in factories Some of them go places that are dangerous for people to go such as space But some robots are made just for fun Cozmo the block-stacking robot
A robotic arm works in a factory is this kind of robot He is an entertainment robot made to play with people Robot scientists called roboticists make robots for lots of different reasons and to do many different jobs That means robots can look very different Some are playful robots such as Cozmo Others are mechanical-arm robots used in factories Some robots assemble or paint cars There are many kinds of robots
WHAT ALL ROBOTS DO Most robots have three things in common First robots often have sensors These are like the eyes and ears of the robot Second robots have computer processors These act like the robot’s brain They allow it to follow instructions or even make decisions on its own Third robots have actuators Actuators are motors that allow the robot to react to its environment For an example of these parts in action imagine a wheeled robot moving around a room With its sensors the robot notices that it is about to run into a wall The robot uses its processor to think about this situation It has been instructed to avoid walls It uses its actuators attached to wheels to turn away from the danger This pattern of behavior is called sense-think-act Robots do each of these steps but not all machines that do these steps are robots An air conditioner can sense with a thermostat think with a computer and act with its cooling system But an air conditioner is not a robot
THE SENSE(cid:31)THINK(cid:31)ACT PATTERN This diagram shows the sense-think-act-pattern This is a pattern that robots can use to respond to their environment How does this diagram help explain robot behavior Give an example of how a robot would use this pattern SENSE SENSE THE ENVIRONMENT THINK PLAN HOW TO REACT ACT DO SOMETHING enviroment
