What is a robot?
The word robot entered the modern language from the play R.U.R. by the Czech author, Karel Capek, which was published back in 1920. Roboti is supposed to be a Czech word meaning forced servitude. In the play, an industrialist learns how to build artificial people – not mechanical, metal men, but made of flesh and blood, who emerge from a factory fully grown. The English translation of the name as Rossum’s Universal Robots (R.U.R.) introduced the word "robot" to the world.
Robot anatomy – what are robots made of?
In our limited definition of robots as meaning mobile machines that have sensors and interact with their environment, there is a fairly standard collection of components and parts that make up the vast majority of robots. Even robots as outwardly different as a self-driving car, the welding robot that built the car, and a Roomba vacuum cleaner, are actually composed of some version of the same parts. Some will have more components, others less, but pretty much all...
