Introduction To Robots
What is the first thing that comes to mind when
you think of a robot?
For many people it is a machine that imitates a
human—like the androids in Star Wars,
Terminator and Star Trek: The Next Generation.
However much these robots capture our
imagination, such robots still only inhabit Science
Fiction. People still haven't been able to give a
robot enough 'common sense' to reliably interact
with a dynamic world. However, Rodney Brooks
and his team at MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab
are working on creating such humanoid robots.
The type of robots that you will encounter most
frequently are robots that do work that is too
dangerous, boring, onerous, or just plain nasty.
Most of the robots in the world are of this type.
They can be found in auto, medical,
manufacturing and space industries. In fact,
there are over a million of these type of robots
working for us today .
Some robots like the Mars Rover Sojourner and
the upcoming Mars Exploration Rover , or the
underwater robot Caribou help us learn about
places that are too dangerous for us to go. While
other types of robots are just plain fun for kids
of all ages. Popular toys such as Teckno, Polly
or AIBO ERS-220 seem to hit the store shelves
every year around Christmas time.
And as much fun as robots are to play with,
robots are even much more fun to build. In Being
Digital, Nicholas Negroponte tells a wonderful
story about an eight year old, pressed during a
televised premier of MITMedia Lab's LEGO/Logo
work at Hennigan School. A zealous anchor,
looking for a cute sound bite, kept asking the
child if he was having fun playing with LEGO/
Logo. Clearly exasperated, but not wishing to
offend, the child first tried to put her off. After
her third attempt to get him to talk about fun,
the child, sweating under the hot television
lights, plaintively looked into the camera and
answered, "Yes it is fun, but it's hard fun."
But what exactly is a robot?
As strange as it might seem, there really is no
standard definition for a robot. However, there
are some essential characteristics that a robot
must have and this might help you to decide
what is and what is not a robot. It will also help
you to decide what features you will need to
build into a machine before it can count as a
robot.
A robot has these essential characteristics:

Sensing First of all your robot would have to be
able to sense its surroundings. It would do this in
ways that are not unsimilar to the way that you
sense your surroundings. Giving your robot
sensors: light sensors (eyes), touch and pressure
sensors (hands), chemical sensors (nose),
hearing and sonar sensors (ears), and taste
sensors (tongue) will give your robot awareness
of its environment.
Movement A robot needs to be able to move
around its environment. Whether rolling on
wheels, walking on legs or propelling by thrusters
a robot needs to be able to move. To count as a
robot either the whole robot moves, like the
Sojourner or just parts of the robot moves, like
the Canada Arm.
Energy A robot needs to be able to power itself.
A robot might be solar powered, electrically
powered, battery powered. The way your robot
gets its energy will depend on what your robot
needs to do.
Intelligence A robot needs some kind of
"smarts." This is where programming enters the
pictures. A programmer is the person who gives
the robot its 'smarts.' The robot will have to have
some way to receive the program so that it
knows what it is to do.
So what is a robot?
Well it is a system that contains sensors, control
systems, manipulators, power supplies and
software all working together to perform a task.
Designing, building, programming and testing a
robots is a combination of physics, mechanical
engineering, electrical engineering, structural
engineering, mathematics and computing. In
some cases biology, medicine, chemistry might
also be involved. A study of robotics means that
students are actively engaged with all of these
disciplines in a deeply problem-posing problem-
solving environment.