Robotric Timeline
Essay by review • December 24, 2010 • Essay • 396 Words (2 Pages) • 1,054 Views
* ~270BC an ancient Greek engineer named Ctesibus made organs and water clocks with movable figures.
* 1818 - Mary Shelley wrote "Frankenstein" which was about a frightening artificial lifeform created by Dr. Frankenstein.
* 1921 - The term "robot" was first used in a play called "R.U.R." or "Rossum's Universal Robots" by the Czech writer Karel Capek. The plot was simple: man makes robot then robot kills man!
* 1941 - Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov first used the word "robotics" to describe the technology of robots and predicted the rise of a powerful robot industry.
* 1942 - Asimov wrote "Runaround", a story about robots which contained the "Three Laws of Robotics":
o A robot may not injure a human, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
o A robot must obey the orders it by human beings except where such orders would conflic with the First Law.
o A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict withe the First or Second Law.
* 1948 - "Cybernetics", an influence on artificial intelligence research was published by Norbert Wiener
* 1956 - George Devol and Joseph Engelberger formed the world's first robot company.
* 1959 - Computer-assisted manufacturingg was demonstrated at the Servomechanisms Lab at MIT.
* 1961 - The first industrial robot was online in a General Motors automobile factory in New Jersey. It was called UNIMATE.
* 1963 - The first artificial robotic arm to be controlled by a computer was designed. The Rancho Arm was designed as a tool for the handicapped and it's six joints gave it the flexibility of a human arm.
* 1965 - DENDRAL was the first expert system or program designed to execute the accumulated knowledge of subject experts.
* 1968 - The octopus-like Tentacle Arm was developed by Marvin Minsky.
* 1969 - The Stanford Arm was the first electrically powered, computer-controlled robot
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