All about the i-robot and saving time and energy

ALL ABOUT THE HOME i-ROBOT

Robots (and Androids and Cyborgs) and the i-robot are really making big news in the movies. Star Wars had some robots that are now just so famous with C3PR and R2D2 being household names.

If you robot lovers have seen Star Wars Episode 3 Revenge of the Sith, well isn’t that movie just robot heaven? Robots with a smokers cough and the robot troops have a sarcastic and dry sense of humor, great stuff! Star Trek had Commander Data of course (and the Borgs, the Queen was kind of cute don’t you think?).

Also I was big fan of Short Circuit and Johnny No.5 – No 5 is alive! and also the movies AI and i-Robot and my favorite Sci-Fi at the moment is Battlestar Galactica and the Cylons. Of course I must not forget Dr Who and his Daleks either and I was a big fan of Westworld not to mention Arnie and that really scary liquid-metal T-1000 pursuer in the Terminator. Tamer and less warlike robots included the “new” spouses in The Stepford Wives. You can see that I am a big Robot fan, and most of you will be far more interested in real i-robots than a robot-toy!

A ROBOT HISTORY

Robotics are not new, and like most technological achievements had their genesis long ago. They say that in 270 BC an ancient Greek engineer called Ctesibus manufactured organs and water clocks that had movable figures (and this alone dramatically altered the whole time thing with the creation of an accurate timepiece. Actually Leonardo da Vinci also designed a robot in 1495 but not sure that made it into the The Da Vinci Code.

Actually the term robot had it’s debut in a play back in 1920 called R.U.R. or Rossum's Universal Robots written by the Czech novelist and Playwright Karel Capek. This word comes from the Czech word robota which means tedious labor, which is just what robots have become good at doing. The plot of this play was the same as most movies in the genre, which has man creating a robot after which the robot kills the creator, man! In 1941 that great sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov coined the word "robotics" to describe robot technology, and made a prediction that the robot industry would become powerful. The TV series featuring customized robot-toy battles has really brought robots into the public eye and although they really are just a robot-toy, it does show just how far hobby robotics has come as an interest. The movie I-Robot is based on the novel by Isaac Asimov Runaround with the 3 Basic Laws of Robotics. 1. A robot may not injure a human, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders from human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect it’s own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The first programmable robotic arm to perform repetitious tasks was developed by George Devol in 1954 starting off the big changes in manufacturing (most cars plants are very robotic, welded and painted entirely by robotic arms). These days the robot is used in many tasks that are considered to hazardous for humans that range from industrial manufacturing applications, the recent Mars probe, remote operated underwater vehicles (ROV) to gas sampling in volcanoes. These day’s the robot-toy and the domestic robots are also appearing with an increasing level of sophistication. One robot recently introduced even does hospital ward rounds. Having spent my life as an engineer in the marine and offshore oil industries, automation and industrial computing are my daily bread and butter and I find this all very exciting.

THE DOMESTIC i-ROBOT IS HERE

You know the drill, it’s sweep, scrub, scour, rinse and then repeat. Imagine not having to vacuum the carpet ever again, it is now possible! The i-Robot Roomba is an intelligent and very effective robotic vacuum cleaner.

The complete range of Roomba Robotic Floorvacs feature iRobot’s unique AWARE™ Robotic Intelligence System. The AWARE system utilizes dozens of sensors to monitor the Roomba’s environment, which is your home, and then adjusts Roomba’s behavior up to 67 times per second. This makes sure that the Roomba cleans your home effectively, intelligently, and also safely.

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