Robot Workers

Children's Literature - Hazel Buys

The domestication of robots is no longer a Star Wars concept. In addition to the familiar use of robotics in industry, we are now able to enjoy assistants in our homes and yards that do not tire, get sick, require regular work hours, or a paycheck. George Devol and Joseph Engelberger pioneered the use of robotics between 1956 and 1961. Their first Unimate robot, a one-armed robot that picked up and stacked hot pieces of metal, joined the General Motors automobile plant as a "pick and place" machine. Today, robots come in many sizes and shapes, their form dictated by the work they are designed to do. For example, the milling gantry, a metal-shaping robot, has five heads. Robots work on the farm as well as in industry, in outer space, deep in the ocean, and in commerce and the services industries. Robots are hard at work in medicine, revolutionizing the design of artificial limbs, adding life-enhancing skills and techniques to surgery, diagnosis and treatment. The Kokoro Actroid receptionist robot wears a mini-skirt and speaks four languages. The average consumer can enjoy the services of a robot vacuum cleaner and lawn mower. The future of robotics is intimately tied to developments in computer technology and is limited only by human imagination. Sidebars, labeled "Robofacts," add detail to points under discussion. Finally, a time track of the history and events in the development of robotics, a glossary, and an index conclude the book. Lavish photographic illustrations and colorful schematics add to the visual appeal of this book. This title is part of the "ROBOZONES" series and would be a good resource in a middle school library and/or science classroom.

School Library Journal

Gr 3-6
Interesting although somewhat superficial, these books cover the control and applications of modern and future robots. Brains describes computers, microchips, sensors, and artificial intelligence in the context of robots. Jefferis includes information on robots as toys; safety and performance enhancers in cars; humans' assistants, servants, and competitors, as in the case of chess; and as automated controllers in transportation and service industries. Voyagers discusses their applications in space from Sputnik through deep-space probes, undersea, in the air and other extreme environments, and their ability to guide vehicles in races against other robot-controlled vehicles. Workers focuses on robotics in industry-in automobile manufacturing, agriculture, hazardous work sites, and so on. All three titles include information on how robots work. Texts are brief, with most of the material presented in captions to the outstanding color photos and other illustrations. A factual error crops up in the claim that the Titanic sank in 1919, rather than in 1912, and the statement that "some scientists say [Pluto] should not be called a planet at all" is dated (Voyagers ). Attractive, but basic introductions.
—Jeffrey A. FrenchCopyright 2006 Reed Business Information.