Bots and Bods: How Robots and Humans Work, from the Inside Out
Contents Introduction 6 CHAPTER 1 BODY BASICS Almost Human 10 Baby Bods 12 Bony Bits 14 Outer Layers 16 Arms and Shoulders 18 Hands and Fingers 20 Robots Making Things 22 Legs and Feet 24 Head and Neck 26 Chest and Back 28 Part Bod Part Bot 30 Tiny but Mighty 32 CHAPTER2 GET MOVING Muscles and Motors 36 Sending Signals 38 Security Bots 40 Power and Energy 42 What a Waste 44 Walking and Running 46 Fastest Bots and Bods 48 Bot Travel 50
CHAPTER 3 SEEING AND SENSING Fingers and Touch 54 Eyes and Vision 56 Robots in the Home 58 Ears and Hearing 60 Keeping Balanced 62 Voice and Speech 64 Taste and Smell 66 Robots in Space 68 CHAPTER 4 THINKING AND FEELING Brains of All Kinds 72 How Brains Work 74 Doctor Bot 76 Mind and Memory 78 Getting Emotional 80 Who’s the Smartest 82 Bot Explorers 84 Bodiless Bots 86 Bots and Us the Future 88 Answers 90 Index 92 Picture Credits 96
Introduction What is a robot Is it a kind of metal person with flashing lights making beeping noises and talking in a funny voice That could be a robot But it’s only part of the story Some bots look like people but many don’t They come in all different shapes colors and sizes from the gigantic to the microscopic Some even look like animals such as insects fish lizards and dogs In 1920 a Czech writer named Karel Čapek first used the word robot in a play In his language it meant forced labor The robots in the play were humanlike machines built to do hard work In the end they rebelled against their human masters Robots started to appear in movies after that and scientists began to build machines that they called robots In the 1960s the first robots were created to work in factories and the bot world has been growing ever since A robot is basically a machine designed by humans that’s programmed to carry out jobs that a person might normally do or find impossible to do Robots are built to do things better than humans and for longer They make life easier and safer for people by doing dangerous boring and dirty tasks Bots can do exactly the same things day in and day out They never get tired and always do what they are told Not many humans can match that
Because robots do lots of jobs that humans might do they often copy what the human body does A person needs energy to do anything from breathing to hitting a home run A robot needs energy too to carry out its tasks Humans and robots both have to move around to get anything done and each has different mechanisms for doing that Anything a person does relies on information gathered by their senses such as seeing hearing and tasting A bot also has to know what’s going on around it and needs sensors to pick up the signals In a human all of this is controlled by the amazing brain Robots have nothing as advanced as that to tell them what to do but they try their best with the computers and other devices that engineers give them In this book you’ll find all the things that humans and robots can do in the same way and where and how they are different First you’ll get to know the basic features of human bodies and how they are copied in bots Then you’ll see how movement happens how the world is seen and sensed and how humans and robots think it all through Throughout each chapter are interesting examples that point toward a future when bots will be helping bods more than ever THINK ABOUT THIS You’ll find Think About This boxes on some of the pages that ask interesting questions about bots and bods To find the answers go to pages 90 91
