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What is robotics and how does it fit into the world around us?

The word 'robotics' comes from the Czech word 'Robotta' which means 'tedious work' and is coined today to commonly describe machines built by humans to do tasks that are tedious, repetitive, dangerous or need to be performed to a high degree of precision.

Examples in real world include car manufacturing where dedicated robots are used for volume production and where consistency and repeatability is of prime importance. Your dishwasher might be classed as a form of robot because it does something that is seen as a tedious chore, washing the dinner plates! To dream a little; wee nano bots could be used in the human body to repair a faulty heart valve for instance, eliminating the need for invasive surgery. Large robots can be developed to work in space, mining asteroids for useful minerals.

Careers in robotics?

There are wonderful exciting career opportunities in various fields of robotics. Some disciplines would be mathematics and computer science where advances are made in the development of artificial intelligence and speech recognition. Engineering fields such as chemistry, mechanics and electronics are important for robotics where new materials and technologies are being developed. Some of these disciplines are integrated into tertiary courses in mechatronics offered by Universities and Polytechnics now. Lets also not forget about important advances being made in the area of medicine where robots are already available to assist surgeons to perform very delicate surgery that otherwise would be impossible or too risky. If you're thinking about what to do, then consider the possibilities in research, design, construction and maintenance of robots.

How can these kits be of benefit to us - learning about robotics?

These kits will help kids learn about how robots are constructed, gather information about their surroundings and react to it. They will learn basic programming and be able to predict the robots behaviour but there can be some surprises! Explore different parts of the robot that make the robot be a robot. Expect the unexpected! That's the fun of it. We had a good laugh on live CTV when one of our robots during a demo decided to misbehave and ended up on the floor. We suspect the studio lighting had something to do with it. Fortunately robot and floor survived, our bots are tough! A big thank you to Donna and Megan at CTV for having us! It was a blast!

All the information you need is provided with each kit, so even if you have no previous knowledge of robotics you can get started easily. If you have any questions please feel free to contact us.

Microcontroller Boards

Orangutan LV168	Orangutan x2	JXMEGA128	VX-MEGA128	ARM JX-21488