What is a Robot?

After a few weeks of hands-on robotics activities it was time to consider the question of "What is a robot?". I asked the students to research a topic of their choice and prepare a class presentation based on their findings.

Robotics Research Task

The task: Select, and research, a particular robot (or particular robots) that demonstrates a general topic relating to robotics (or a type of robot), then create a presentation (e.g. PowerPoint, Google Presentation) about your topic. For example: “da Vinci – the surgical robot”.

Before giving the students this task, I usually lead a discussion about what is (and what isn't) a robot. To explore this topic, I showed them images of some obvious and some not so obvious classes of robots, including:

• mobile robots
• factory robots
• autonomous vehicles
• biomimicry-based robots (e.g. Big Dog)
• swarm robots.

For example, does something have to be mobile to be considered a robot? Students usually are happy to class a Roomba vacuum cleaner as a robot, but what about a photocopier? Or a microwave oven using a sensor-based reheat function? Automatic doors?

I asked the students for their definition of a robot and we compared these to some typical definitions, such as this one from Wikipedia...

"A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer— capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. Robots can be guided by an external control device or the control may be embedded within." (Wikipedia, accessed 7 May 2019)

Here are a few ways of thinking about this topic that I like draw on, depending on where the discussion leads...

Sense-Think-Act - This is a classic robotic paradigm provides a way of thinking about how a robot operates. Also known Sense-Plan-Act, it's not the only approach, but it's a starting point.Anatomy of a Robot - Parallels with human anatomy:

• processor (brains)
• sensors (senses)
• actuators (muscles)
• power source (food)
• structure (skeleton)

The "Three" Ds of Robotics - I originally came across this idea presented as three areas (dull, dirty, dangerous) in which robots are ideally suited. I've since seen this list expanded to a number of different Ds, including:

• dull
• dirty
• dangerous
• distance
• dexterous
• domestic
• dear

After a few lessons to conduct their research, the students gave their presentations to the rest of the class.