Skills

9C

160

Unit 9

Today and tomorrow

Reading

1

Look at the photos. Do you recognise the robots? Do you know

any other robots in films or books?

Karel Capek, a Czech writer, used the word ‘robot’ for the first

time in 1921. It comes from the Czech word robota. In his play

‘R.U.R.’(Rossum’s Universal Robots), a factory makes robots.

Unfortunately, the robots kill all the humans and control the

world! It’s a scary story.

Today, we find robots in lots of different places from factories

to hospitals. In car factories, robots do boring, dangerous or

difficult jobs such as cutting metal or painting the body of the

car. Some robots guard museums at night. Others vacuum the

floors in offices and homes!

These robots don’t look like people, but they are similar. In

humans, the brain sends messages to different parts of the

body and controls its movements. In robot technology, a main

computer controls the movements of the robot in the same way.

Robots are very useful for exploring space. Russian robots

walked on the Moon in the 1970s, and the Americans landed

two robots on Mars in 2004. But why send robots into space?

Well, robots can go to places that are dangerous for humans.

They don’t need oxygen or food and drink, and they can survive

extreme temperatures. In space this is important. Temperatures

can go from 120°C in the sun to –100°C in the dark!

These days, the most advanced robots can hear, see and make

decisions. They have AI or ‘artificial intelligence’. In the future,

we will use robots in many more different ways. Doctors will use

very small robots called nanobots to treat illnesses. They are so

small that you can’t see them!

What do you think of when you see the word

‘robots’? science-fiction metal monsters or

machines that look like people? Robots are all

around us today and they do a lot of different

things.