Robotics

The world of robots; the origin of robots; three components responsible for the advancements in robot design; how behavioral autonomy is essential to the development of modern robotics.

How robots actually work; deconstructing a Roomba to learn the five functional categories of parts all robots need; exploring a universal lesson about robotics; how trade-offs in robot design work.

Investigating robot actuators; the motors and transmissions that underlie all robotic movement; the early use of springs as motors in automata; how electricity spins the magnets that make motors move; how movement defines a robot.

Intelligent behavior in robots is rooted in the sensors that determine how much robots know about the world around them; how sensors work to communicate across the electromagnetic spectrum such as through infrared and visible light.

How a remotely controlled machine is turned into an autonomous robot; self-control in robots; robot controllers; the part of robots that uses sensory information to decide how the robot should achieve its immediate and long-term goals.

The most important problem mobile robots must solve is how to navigate, or move with purpose; how simultaneous localization and mapping is the key to a robot's autonomy in both structured and exploratory situations.