Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 12. Erik Sanchez, “Impossible Creatures: Modern Bat, The Rock Eater, Cat Bird, Glowing
Mushroom, and Blind Bird” (© 2012, E. Sanchez. Used with permission)
The word “robot” was coined in 1920 by the
Czech writer Karel Čapek (1890-1938) in the
course of conversation with his brother, the cubist
painter and writer Josef Čapek; it was given to an
artificial man that could be mistaken for humans.
In 1941 the U.S. writer of Russian origin Isaac
Asimov (1920-1992) introduced to the readers
the term 'robotics' based on the Karel Čapek's
concept of the robot. Many icons have a long
life; in spite of the developments in robotics a
picture of an anthropomorphic, humanoid robot
still serves as an icon for a great many robots. In
fact, the industrial, servicing robots designed for
specific or general tasks, and bots (virtual software
agents), all of them do not resemble humans.
Problems that are difficult for humans or robots
may be solved by multi-agent systems consisting
from multiple interacting intelligent agents, often
software agents, which are present within their
environment. Programs written for the weighted
request and response, telling which features are
very important, medium important, or unimport-
ant, are often applied for computer simulations
and models (Pérez et al., 2012).
See Table 2 for Your Visual Response.
Figure 13a and b show class projects about
robots.
In Figure 13a, Royce Wood designed his in-
teractive project entitled “Robot Maker” during
the “Web Construction Design” course I co-taught
with the Computer Science professor (Ursyn &
Scott, 2006, 2007). Depending on the visitors'
choices, robots with different features (as described
above) would show up on the screen.
Figure 13b. Matt Hall presented a set of robots
he called:
•
Pentabrach:
Intelligence 9, Speed 1,
Weaponry 0; performs multiple tasks with
great dexterity and intelligence, such as
conducting an orchestra with all five arms,
or delivering a baby with three arms and
playing chess with the other two. His AI
chip allows multitasking and problem solv-
ing, however it is utterly defenseless;
•
Autotank:
Intelligence 2, Speed 1,
Weaponry 7; a massive fighting machine,
completely auto-piloted and driver-free ro-
botic tank. Armed with several cannons, a
massive tank gun with two additional tur-
