39 Interesting Facts About Robotics That Will Turn Your World Upside Down

Here are some interesting facts about Robotics. Robots are pretty common to everyone today. So common that we don’t consider them just as human-shaped machines that are constantly scheming to take over the human world. Robots are usually controlled by a human operator or follow preset commands that ease human tasks.

With their presence in our homes to sophisticated military environments, robots are here to stay and are expected to get better with time. Although we are familiar with robots, there are still several interesting facts that we may have missed in the years of their development and progression.

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Here’s a list of 41 curious facts about robotics that you may not have known.

Awesome Facts About Robotics

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The Word ‘Robot’

Robot is a word derived from the Czech word ‘robota‘ which simply means ‘forced labor‘. Curiously, it was used to mean peasants, who were forced or obligated to work for their feudal lords.

The meaning has changed to anything man-made that could perform work and other human tasks.

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The first company to sell robots

Unimation, a company founded by George Devol and Joseph Engelberger in 1956 was the first company to introduce the first batch of industrial robots to the market.

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Cars from the Past

Another Interesting fact About Robotics is Da Vinci’s car. Although it was only meant to be presented as a magnificent work of art, Leonardo Da Vinci once designed a car back in 1478. The car was a spring-driven autonomous system which could also be quoted as the first tank.

The design of the car was circular and has been featured in several games with game creators assigning various attributes to the fantasy car built by the master inventor.

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Robots from the Renaissance

Leonardo Da Vince still stands as an enigma, considering the number of creative inventions and amazing drawings he made in his lifetime. There are sketches for a detailed plan for a mechanical knight designed by him around the year 1495.

Although limited by today’s power sources, he still designed the sketches for a robot with a human structure, that could stand, sit, raise its visor, and independently move its arms, neck, and jaws.

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First usage of the term Robot

Although the word robot existed before, the first real usage of the word robot for man-made machines that worked autonomously was in a 1920 play R.U.R: Rossum’s Universal Robots. The play was written by Karel Čapek depicting how robots overthrow their creators.

The story has not changed in a century, as we still have movies based on robots taking over human civilizations and enslaving us. Let’s hope the next Terminator brings in some change to the narrative.

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First Death by Robot

The famous laws of Azimov were famously used in the film I, Robot, where the plot revolved around an investigation on a case where a person was killed by a robot for the first time.

Unlike that, however, the first known accidental death caused by a robot happened in 1981 where a Japanese factory worker was crushed by a robot arm.

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When predictions came true

Predictions of bygone eras that pertain to a world containing robots are nothing new. One of the most striking of these predictions were made by Aristotle in 350 BC in his famous work Politics. He predicts that slaves will one day be replaced by automatons in performing household tasks.

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“There is only one condition in which we can imagine managers not needing subordinates,” he says, “and masters needing slaves. This condition would be that each instrument could do its own work, at the word of command or by intelligent anticipation.”

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Spot – The Pet Robo Dog

Lately, the four-legged robots from Boston Dynamics have been doing the rounds on social media for their insane dance moves. Although initially made for military purposes as a weight-carrying robot, Spot has been envisioned to be of use in all kinds of situations ranging from construction, recreation, military, and more.

Currently, the company is designing versions of it fit to be used as a house pet even.

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Steam Powered Pigeon

This invention resembles more like a party rocket than a pigeon. Invented by an ancient Greek philosopher named Archytas, it is known as the first-ever self-propelled flying device.

The body of the pigeon was hollow with its rear end connected to a source of the airtight water boiler. As the water boils and steam gets accumulated in the body of the pigeon, the rising steam pressure automatically propelling it from the base of the boiler.

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NASA’s Knight

Roboticist Mark Roshiem built a robotic knight in 2002 that was inspired by Da Vinci’s designs. His prototype could talk and wave. He later used Da Vinci’s design as inspiration for his future robot builds for NASA.

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Vaucanson’s Duck

Two and half centuries after Da Vinci, a remarkable French gentleman named Jacques de Vaucanson began building a series of never-before-seen automata which were famous across Europe at the time.

His first automation was a flute player that could automatically play twelve songs. He later created a duck with over 400 carefully designed parts for the wing alone and went even further to weigh each of them to make it move just like a duck. The robot duck was so advanced that it could even eat, digest and excrete food.

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Robots for Daily Use

It was in 1990 that iRobot, a company that was founded by MIT roboticists, started building robotic solutions for daily tasks. They have sold more than 20 million robots so far globally, ranging from simple task robots for home cleaning to complex military robots for the U.S military. They even launched the first FDA-approved remote presence robots for hospitals.

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Robotic Horse

The U.S Marines tested out a four-legged robot in the jungles of Hawaii back in 2014. The purpose of the robot was to haul weights of up to 400 pounds and have mobility across terrains, much like a mule. The robot was named LSS (Legged Support System). Their advanced versions may come in the future that could potentially replace horses in battle.

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Warfighters of the Future

Although we’ve seen drones and their capabilities for surveillance and attack, Russia is trying a land-based approach to tackle the threats of the future. They are testing their range of UGVs (Unmanned Ground Vehicles) to see whether they bring out the most utility in the battleground.

Their latest UGV Nerekhta is well built with machine guns, grenade launchers, and even anti-tank guided missiles, just a few of its firepower. As such, they have more equipment fitted on them than the standard drone. Their military hopes to eventually control all their vehicles through artificial intelligence, thereby reducing human casualty during battles and other conflicts.

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The gentle bear robot

Robear, a nursing robot that almost looks similar to a cute polar bear was designed to help the elderly. It’s so gentle in its operation although it has the strength to lift a full-grown adult. It currently helps elders sit down and stand up.

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Robots for Care

In Japan, the percentage of people above the age of 65 is expected to reach 40% by 2065, making almost half the population elderly. This means there will be a lot spent in medical care tech for them, and as a result, the nursing-care robots market is currently booming in Japan. With almost one-third of their government budget spent exclusively for developing care robots, the country is all set to become a haven for elders in the country.

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Farming Robots

How cool would it be if your robots knew when to cultivate crops, and then do it all without human supervision? Scientists are in pursuit to build robot farmers that could exactly that, including seed planting, watering, and even spraying fertilizers on them. They are expected to hit the market in the 2020s.

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Understanding Robots

A fascinating duo of robots, Simon and Curie were built by inventor Andrea Thomaz to explore the possibilities of human expression in robots. The robots had big eyes and white faces enabling them to talk, listen and react. The effort here was to make robots and artificial intelligence relate to people in basic human contact points like speech and gestures.

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Robots that Run Way Faster than Us – Interesting fact about Robotics

It was only natural that we research how fast a robot could run. At the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, a team of scientists developed a robot inspired by a velociraptor. Raptor, the two-legged robot with a tail-like mechanism, ran at 46km/hr, faster than Usain Bolt.

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All Hands to Prevent Killer Bots

Technology that could create killer robots exists today, says Stuart Russell, a professor of Computer Science at Berkeley University, California. In an effort to curb the probable future of such autonomous weapons, he and fellow campaigners in 2017 took their case to the United Nations. Their case, to bring global prohibition on such lethal autonomous weapon systems

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Nanobots – Interesting Facts About Robotics

These are microscopic robots that are designed to operate in extremely small spaces and perform predefined functions. Although these are still in their experimental stage, they are expected to eventually be introduced into the bloodstream to perform delicate surgical operations that are often difficult to perform in standard surgery.

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The Oldest Surviving American Robot

Elektro, a creation that was built and showcased at the 1939 World’s Fair, is considered to be the oldest surviving American robot in the world. Electro could talk, described himself as ‘smart fellow’ with a ‘fine brain’, consisting of around 48 electrical relays which kind of worked like a telephone switchboard.

Voice commands were all taken via a telephone handset, enabling it to respond to commands. It is currently in the Mansfield Memorial Museum.

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Robots Takeover Humans

There’s a prediction by Hans Moravec, the founder of Carnegie Mellon’s Robotic Institute, that the world will witness the emergence of robots as a species in 2040, and will then replace humans in every essential task.

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Androids and Robots

It may seem quite common that the words ‘android’ and ‘robot’ are used interchangeably, but they actually have very different meanings. A robot that looks like a human is called an android. So everything else that works really smart to make our work easier is a robot, not an android.

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Personal Care Robots

Henry Evans and Charlie Kemp are on a mission to build common sense robots – robots that could help adjust a blanket, assist in shaving, and even scratch itches. This effort came after Henry Evans suffered a stroke that left him with limited mobility. He is currently working with Robotics for Humanity, pioneering in adaptive robotic tech to help people with disabilities get adequate support for commonplace activities.

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Artificial Prosthesis

We’re slowly approaching ‘cyberpunk’ as newer applications of artificial hands are being devised by engineers across the world. Here is another interesting fact about Robotics. One such invention was the ‘robotic drumming prosthesis made by Professor Gil Weinberg of Georgia Tech was made for a musician. The robot uses two motors that powered both the drumsticks. While the first stick is controlled by both the musician and EMG muscle sensors, the second stick ‘listens’ to what’s being played and improvises.

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Early users of Robots

Almost 70% of robot orders in the 1980s were from automotive factories, and their operations ranged from welding, painting, dispensing, and lately, they have been used for assembling car parts without human assistance. By far, the automotive industry is credited as the earliest adopters of robotics technology for practical purposes.

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The Mechanical Monk

Around the time that Da Vinci amused Italy with his creative brilliance, there was a mechanical monk once made by the order of King Philip of Spain. This device, said to have been built around the 1560s was 15 inches tall and when wound up, would do a series of movements including the movement of mouth as if it’s chanting sermons. The monk apparently looked like a monk that once healed the king’s son of his illness.

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The Law abiding Robot

Most of us have heard of this law somewhere or the other. While the name of the law is more popular than the laws themselves, Asimov’s laws of robotics were first featured in his science fiction novels written around 1942.

Asimov’s laws prescribe three specific behaviors that every robot must adhere to: never to injure humans, always obey humans, and should protect their own existence unless it violates the first or second law.

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Actual laws for Robots

Cyberlaw, a section under the Stanford Law website clearly ascertains the ethics related to using robots in the areas of war, law enforcement, and medicine. The need for these laws is more relevant today as robots are becoming a mainstay in our private and public lives.

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The Einstein Robot

There’s an actual Einstein robot that can show an array of facial expressions resembling that of the great Albert Einstein.

The facial expressions are made possible by a collection of 31 artificial muscles. The robot is currently enabled to learn expressions on its own and has taught itself to smile and frown.

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Martian Rovers

Back in 2004, NASA launched a mission into Mars to learn the chemical and meteorological makeup of the planet. Two ‘robotic geologists’ named Spirit and Opportunity landed on the opposite sides of the planet and sent thousands of high-resolution pictures back to NASA. Even though they were supposed to expire within 90 Martian solar days, Spirit was in service until 2010, and Opportunity is still functional to this day.

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Robot that closely Resembled a Real Person

Here is another interesting fact about Robotics. It has been one of the fantasies of science fiction aficionados to see robots that resemble real people. Something close to this was made by David Hanson of the Terasem movement when he created and programmed a robot named BINA48.

The robot was modeled after Bina Rothblatt, the wife of Terasem’s co-founder, and was fed all of Bina’s thoughts, feelings, memories, and emotions. Currently, BINA48 can hold intellectual conversations on a number of different topics and also got the ability to learn and grow her memory and even vocabulary, expressing over 64 feelings. Impressive, right?

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Robots that write Essays

More than just athletic ability and expressing emotions, robots were even fashioned to take exams on our behalf. A robot was programmed in Japan by Noriko Arai to take the entrance exam to Japan’s Tokyo University.

Although the robot failed to get the top rank in the exam, it still beat 80% of the students who attended the exam. This was an exam that even required a full-blown essay to be written, which the robot wrote in style.

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The curious case of Captain Cyborg

This happened in 1998 when Professor Kevin Warwick from the Reading University underwent a microchip implant in his nervous system. The implant was so groundbreakingly successful that it allowed him to control room lights, door locks, elevators, and other devices via the chip that emits a unique signal that could be read by a computer.

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World’s First Robot Citizen

Developed by Hanson Robotics, Sophia is an evolving genius machine that currently resides in Saudi Arabia with official Saudi Arabian citizenship. Sophia is best known for her reference to human destruction. Later on in 2017, at a future investment initiative held in Saudi, she said she desired to live peacefully among humans.

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Going deep down in Antarctica

The Ross ice shelf is the largest ice shelf of Antarctica, almost resembling a 50m white wall in the middle of the ocean. In 2005, a group of scientists and engineers from the Georgia Institute of Technology teamed up to see the never before visited depths under the ice shelf. The robot went down through a 12-inch diameter hole into the ice shelf and went another half a kilometer through the seafloor.

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Robot Brothels

In an arguably progressive step, LumiDolls once opened a robot brother – a store in Barcelona for sex doll services. The store had four realistic dolls made available for $84 an hour.

The store quickly ran into trouble as local sex workers, residents, the government, and even the landlord of the property opposed the idea, forcing them to move the brothel to a new secret location.

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Teaching Robots to Play – Interesting Facts About Robotics

Here is another Interesting fact about Robotics. For people who need company to play a two-person game on their tablet. A robot designed and developed by a team at the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering was coupled with a tablet that could mimic human actions.

It was given to children who then taught the robot to play Angry Birds by dragging their finger on the tablet. The robot picked up the simple motion and played the game with them. It was envisioned as a tool for disabled children who require therapy.

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Dead-Scared of Robots

There are people who actually have an extreme or irrational fear of robots, drones, robot-like mechanics, or artificial intelligence. This anxiety disorder is called Robophobia and is often triggered when they are either near a robot, seeing them, and in worst cases, even mentioning them.

Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Stephen Hawking are just some of the famous people who suffer from this disorder.

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Interesting Facts About Robotics Conclusion

And here are the of Interesting Facts About Robotics. Evolution of Robotics was quick. Our world is running faster and faster each day. We sould be able to see more and more marvelous creations in the coming future. What do you think about it?

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