This article is not more concerned with any Technology and Programming. This article contains general but very interesting facts about Robots.In this article we will deal with the history and origin of robots.This is just to enhance the knowledge related to them.Sometimes while doing something with robots or studying about them a question must have been come in your mind that from when Robots come into existence.
If we look into history, we learn that this credit goes to a Chinese person who made an automated machine resembling a human being back in the tenth century B.C. Years after 1920, these humanoid machines have started developing and hence new possibilities have begun to develop which has given hopes of improvements in this field. Some very praiseful trials from Greeks and Egyptians as well have also come into existence which has inspired the people who have wanted to work in this field.
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Heron of Alexandria created some mechanical devices and one of them had the feature of speaking. Early water clocks are considered in the list of robotics. They all came into existence in 4th and 6th century. Water clocks are actually made commonly from stone vessels in which there is a hole from which water falls into another vessel at a constant rate.These clocks did not depend on stars and constellations.
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water clock
Trend of using stop watches also came into existence and used in economy.The automated machine which was created by the Chinese had the ability to walk by taking rapid strides, moving its head up and down and not only this the artificer has created that humanoid machine in such a way that if you anyone touched its chin it started singing perfectly in tune.
Interest in automata was almost non-existent in the medieval period. The first recorded Robotic design was in the name of Leonardo da vinci in around 1495. But unfortunately they come in to light in the year of 1950s when a notebook was rediscovered in which he has drawn some mechanical armed men who can sit and move and move their arms and other parts of the body as well.
Although the implementations and applications has been in existence a long time, people in that time had already started thinking about robots. The fact is verified by looking into the history of art and books which tell us about a short story which was published in 1942. It was the story of a Robot and its affection for a child.
In the story, there was a fictional character Eliza. She was born in 1966 by a Massachusetts Institute and Technology Professor Joseph who wrote a computer program of 240 codes so that one can study natural language communication between man and machines. Asimov also proposed three laws of Robotics which I have discussed in my previous article. Later in 1950, Alan Turing proposed a test to determine whether machines have the ability to think or not; he named the test the Turing Test.
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You must be thinking that in talks of invention of Robots why we are discussing about the story of Asimov. Actually this story has become the inspiration for two scientists during World War II in 1956, who had a discussion on the story. These two people George C. Devolent, an inventer and Joseph F. Engelberger, he is a scientist made an effort to develop a real working robot and to an extent they were even successfull. After the success Joseph started a manufacturing company.
It was the first commercial company which was set up to make robots. And in 1961 finally, they make their first robot and to their first Robot, they nicknamed it as 'Unimate'. This first robot was installed at a General motor Plant to work with heated die-casting machines. Engelberger is called the Father of Robotics.
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First Robot-Unimate
Both applications were commercially successful, i.e., the robots worked reliably and saved money by replacing people. An industry was spawned and a variety of other tasks were also performed by robots, such as loading and unloading machine tools. Later the entrepreneurs had sold the Unimation to Westinghouse. Unimation still makes Robots for commercial purposes. The sale of Robots were high as everyone was interested in knowing about he capabilities of these mechanical men.
In 1986 came the first LEGO based educational products. These products have helped a lot for making Humanoid robots. Many inventions came into light after the creation of Unimate which includes the first artificial robotic arm controlled by computer. The Octopus like Tentacle arm, the first electrically powered arm and so on. From that time to the present many experiments have performed by different scientists and millions of achievements have occured in the field. This was a brief introduction of robotic history whch includes only a few and important events. Otherwise lots of small as well as big things were achieved in the area. It's very hard to combine all the events in only one article. So I am binding up the additional information about the first humanoid robot in space known as Robonaut2.
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Resources:
Robots-smart humans
How to make a Robot-Part 2
An Introduction to virtual memories in windows
Microcontrollers for Robotics