David and Alan Build Robots

Background Information

The word 'robot' was first used by the Czech playwright Karel Capek in 1921. In his play, R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), he imagines a world where machines have taken over all the dull, repetitive work from human beings. In Czech, the word 'robota' means forced, or slave, labour.

Although we have only started to build robots in recent times, people have dreamed of having mechanical servants for centuries. The Ancient Greeks told stories of talking and moving statues. In 1495, the great Italian artist and thinker Leonardo da Vinci made detailed drawings of a mechanical man. In medieval Prague, Jewish people told the story of the golem – an artificial man that runs out of control.

Today, robots are used in factories to paint cars, process food and assemble products. The robot Sojourner explored the surface of the planet Mars in 1998 and another robot, Nomad, surveyed Antarctica in the year 2000. Robots are often used in places where it would be dangerous for people to go, such as the deep oceans or the craters of active volcanoes. Robots have also been used to defuse bombs and to carry out delicate surgery.

Robot toys and pets, such as Sony's AIBO, are becoming more and more popular, but robot design has a long way to go. Scientists still find it difficult to design robots that can walk easily, avoid objects, or respond to spoken instructions. Ultimately, the aim is to produce a robot that can move, talk and react like a human. Perhaps, one day, it will even be possible for robots to think for themselves.