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The word 'robot' comes from a Czech word 'robota', which means 'drudgery'.
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The first known robot in recent history was created in the 5th century BC by Archytas of Tarentum. He created the mechanical doves.
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In 1495 Leonardo da Vinci drew plans for a type of robotic machine. It was an armored humanoid. A functional, but miniature version has been created by Mark Rosheim, an engineer, to colonize Mars for NASA.
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Elektro was the first humanoid robot. It was built in 1939 by Westinghouse. It was seven feet tall and had a vocabulary of 700 words.
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A robot killed a factory worker in 1981. A robotic factory arm crushed an employee at the Kawasaki plant.
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It is estimated that more than one million industrial robots are in operation today, with the majority being in Japan.
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There are two robots on Mars - Spirit and Opportunity. They were built to last 90 days on Mars but they lasted for several years. Curiosity is the latest rover to land on Mars to explore the planet.
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The United States military has 4,000 robots that are used for scouting in dangerous countries like Iraq and Afghanistan where roadside bombs are common. The Taliban fighters have discovered that they can disable these robots by flipping ladders on top of them.
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A robot vacuum cleaner was invented that is capable of sensing its environment and cleaning the floor without human help to move the device.
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Star Wars the movie franchise made robots even more popular in the imagination of people with characters such as R2-D2 and C-3PO.
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Work is underway to develop a microrobot that will be capable of performing a biopsy of a patient from the inside of that patient. It is being built to swim similar to the way E. coli bacteria moves.
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Some people fear that robots will eventually take over the world because they will become their own species.
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A robot has been created that uses bacteria-filled fuel cells. The robot is capable of producing electricity from dead flies to power its battery. It can also use rotten apples to create fuel.
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The smallest robot is called a nanobot. It is less than one-thousandth of a millimeter.
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Japan's NES System Technologies recently built a winebot, capable of identifying many different types of wines and cheeses. It made a mistake at one point and named a reporter's hand as prosciutto.
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