Robotics

Due to the thousands of mails that I have received asking me for writing in English, I will do it. I am joking... to tell you the truth I haven’t received many mails asking me to write in English, it is just that I want to do it. I am not sure when I will return to write in Spanish again but maybe it will be soon. This time, I want to share with you one of the essays I wrote some months ago. Here, I want to thank Becky because she helped me to correct some mistakes I had in the first draft of this essay. If you have some comments to make betterments to the essay, please let me know. This essay is about Robotics, but it doesn’t present anything new about the topic. It is just a short essay with a very general idea about the subject. I have more essays to present you, but I am not sure about my grammar and vocabulary. Maybe some day I will post another essay, but I don’t promise anything.

ROBOTICS

By me (Rosalba)

Robotics is the term that is used to talk about robots. A robot is a machine able to execute specific activities. The definition made by Marco Ceccarelli, the author of Fundamentals of Mechanics of Robotic Manipulation, can clarify more the meaning of robot and robotics, "Robots can be considered as the most advanced automatic systems and robotics, as a technique and scientific discipline, can be considered as the evolution of automation with interdisciplinary integration with other technological fields" (M. Ceccarelly, 2004, p.1). The activities realized by the robot are memorized in its system which without the program or instructions couldn't make anything. The use of the robotics is growing so fast and by giant steps in different areas like working, playing, and exploring. The disadvantages that the robots have are few in comparison with all the advantages they bring us.

As I said before, the advantages that we can see in the robotics are in many areas. For example, the robots can do activities in dangerous environments, like work in nuclear zones, search for mines and defuse bombs. All these activities are being performed by robots, insuring the lives of a good number of humans who could easily die in these kinds of environments. In the area of games, we have robots that act like pets. In this way humans can play and have a fun time. Robots have done the missions to Mars because it's not possible for humans to live in the conditions of that planet. Nowadays, many studies have been conducted by experts, like sensing colors or sounds; in this way the robot that is working in an assembly line of autos can detect where the pieces are by color, and can pick them up and assemble them in the correct place with precision. Sometimes these kinds of jobs are very repetitive and boring for the humans, so they make mistakes, but the robot won't get tired or bored with the activities. The robots that are constructed these days are thinking. This is one of the most interesting areas of the engineering because the robots are starting to make decisions about some problems that can occur in the industry. This area is called artificial intelligence.

Despite of all the advantages, we have to take seriously one of the worst disadvantages that the humanity can face with the robots. This disadvantage is the loss employment for many people that are being replaced by the robots. Another of the disadvantages is that some people may think that robots can be real company, so they can be isolated from the real society. You cannot replace a human or a pet with a robot. In my opinion the first disadvantage mentioned can be solved with education for people in the field of robotics. In other words, robots will replace humans in some activities, but it will be necessary to have experts in Robotics to create more technology. The second disadvantage can be solved if we recognize the differences between robots and humans. In summary, the advantages of robotics are much more than the disadvantages. An article of the Tech Museum of Innovation predicts that the goal for the engineers is to make a robot able to do anything that you can imagine.

REFERENCE

1. Ceccarelli M. (2004). Robotics Fundamentals of mechanics of robotic manipulation (1st ed.). The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publisher
2. Tesler Pearl. (2005). Robotics sensing, thinking and acting. Universal robots: the history and workings of robotics. Retrieved July 9, 2008, from http://www.thetech.org/exhibits/online/robotics/universal/index.html