History of Robotics

And its significance to Programming 1/Robots

Joshua Robinson 5-A

What is a robot?
I personally and many people I have talked to
have misconceptions about what a robot is
exactly.
- The definition of robot is hard to define.
- Robots are everywhere.
- Many things are robots that I (and maybe
you) didnt consider robotics.
- They have been around longer than some
of us thought.
 Definition of a Robot:
Machine capable of carrying out a series
of actions automatically.
Varies in complexity, can but does not have to be
controlled with computers (or equivalents)
The Following are robots:
Coffee Maker, Car, radio, washing
machines, etc.
Robots before Computing
 First Concepts (Ancient Robotics)
The concept of Robots actually started more than a thousand
years before they could technically be defined as invented.
Talos in Greek Mythology, humanoid, of gold.
If every tool, when ordered, or even of its own accord, could do the
work that befits it... then there would be no need either of apprentices
for the master workers or of slaves for the lords.
- Aristotle (~350 B.C.)
The first ever device that could be a
robot was invented around the same
- time and was one of the first thing to
study flight. It was the same time as
Aristotle hinted at robots
The Flying Pigeon was Aristotle invented by Archyta known benefiting the world.
the first known robot
and could fly ran on
as the flying pigeon.
steam.
 Automaton: Definition.
Ancient Greek roots meaning Acting of ones free
will.
First to be technically robots.
Has no brains.
Mostly mechanical.
First precursor to Modern Robots.
Invented in Ancient Greece during the Hellenistic
period.
 Ancient and Early Automatons
Ancient: One of the first Automatons were water clocks that were
invented to replace sand-filled hourglasses in 250 B.C.E, they worked
automatically with water and could keep
rack of time fairly accurately by dripping water at
a certain rate.

Renaissance - Pre-Industrial: Humanoid

Automatons invented during this time
were mostly wind-up toys that
had little practical use.
Around 1495 Leonardo
da Vinci sketched plans
for a humanoid robot.
Robots/Automatons of the Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution plays a big part in the furthering of
Robotics.
The Revolutions point was to make things easier on humans
and make things quicker as well as more automatic.

Hand sewing no longer Steam-boat, much faster,

required, semi/automatic automatic acceleration, Automatic Engine
sewing machine/
Industrial Revolution: An Intro to Modern Robotics.
Jacques de Vaucanson in 1738 created a Automaton to
copy anatomy.
In 1801, Joseph Jacquard built an automated loom that was
controlled with punched cards. Punch cards would be the basis of
early computer later to come.
 Late 19th Century:
Sensor and remote control
In 1883, the thermostat was invented and many consider this the first
ever sensor, which would later evolve into sensors such as IR
(infrared).
In 1889, Nikola Tesla was working on radio transmissions
and manages to build and demonstrate the first remote
controlled robot boat.
This was dismissed by the public at the time because it was so
beyond everyone's imagination to find a practical use for this.
 Modern Robotics
(Robots enter a time of sense and logic)
 Robots Defined! Computers invented!
In 1920, Karel Capek invents the word robot to explain machines that
resemble humans: in his play, Rossum's Universal Robots. The play
portrays robots enslaving man, this becomes a theme for robot movies.
In 1936, the first programmable computer is invented.
In 1937, Alan Turing a paper: Computable Numbers. This begins the computer
revolution.
In the 1950s, George Devol designed the Unimate, a robotic arm device controlled by
computers that transported die castings.
In 1956: John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Nat Rochester and Claude Shannon invent term
for Artificial Intellect. Three years later they open an institute to develop this concept.

The Z1! First

(programmable)
Computer
Robots of Early 20th Century
1. Elektro, made in 1939, used sensors to operate. It used a
phone to talk, it could also smoke and move.
2. In 1966, Shakey the Robot, is the
first mobile robot with the ability to
perceive and reason to its surroundings
it had a TV camera, triangulating range
finder, and bump sensors, and was connected to PDP-10 and
PDP-15 computers via radio and video links.

The PDP-10 and 15 computer were huge and took up much of the room.
Shakey would be the first ever modern-computer-controlled robot starting
modern robot evolution.
 The Invention of the Microprocessor.
In the beginning of computers, they were massive, taking one or
more rooms and were mechanical.
This was a problem for mobility of computer controlled robots.
As time progressed they invented the vacuum tube, then the
transistor, and then finally, the integrated circuit, allowing computer
to become much smaller.
In 1971, Ted Hoff, progressed the integrated circuits to create
Microprocessors.
Microprocessors are like miniature computers capable of several
functions and contain their own memory, they can translate
input/output digital and analog devices to be readable.
 Micro-controlled Robots present and future
Robots today are all sizes and can be completely portable.
They are mostly controlled by microprocessors.
Robots are far from perfect and even today we are improving them, their complexity will
increase.
You can use inexpensive microprocessors to make your own robots (i.e Arduino)
Sensors and input/output are more accessible and portable because of
microprocessors.
Simple things like coffee makers are robots and have microprocessors, day to day
things do, microprocessors are everywhere.
Robots of the future may even someday reach human intellect and functionality because they
are always evolving.

Arduino
Robot
Robot innovating to climb
 References:
http://robotics.megagiant.com/history.html
http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/technology/historyofrobotics.html
http://robotics.ece.auckland.ac.nz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_robots
http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_robots.html
http://what-is-a-sensor.com/history-of-sensors/
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fords-assembly-line-starts-rolling
http://inventors.about.com/library/blcoindex.htm
http://www.thomasnet.com/articles/engineering-consulting/robotics-history
http://www.pbs.org/transistor/background1/events/micropinv.html
google.com/images