First Robot Mop Debuts
If iRobot has its way,millions of people around the world will soon be retiring their mops and buckets.The Cambridge,Massachusetts–based company is finally announcing the follow-up to its remarkably popular Roomba robot rug and floor vacuum:the Scooba robot floor-cleaning system.It's the first household robot designed to sweep,scrub,mop,and dry tile,linoleum,and wood floors.The company is also touting a major partnership coup:The Scooba's cleaning fluid will come from Clorox Co.,which makes household cleaning products.
iRobot CEO Colin Angle explained to us at a recent conference why his company chose to target mopping as the next robotic household-chore challenge."These are the low-hanging fruit," he said,"the things that can make an immediate,understandable difference."
iRobot executives hope that the Scooba makes a difference for those who hate mopping and almost never scrub their floors."People hate vacuuming," says iRobot cofounder and chairman Helen Grenier,"but they really loathe mopping.The Scooba actually scrubs the floor."
The decision to build a mopping robot was both an obvious and a difficult one for iRobot."We knew that on the axis of targets,this was a big one.We also knew that water was scary [and] that something that picks up fluid was going to be substantially more complex than spinning brushes and picking up dirt," recalled Angle.
History
The idea of artificial people dates at least as far back as the ancient legend of Cadmus,who sowed dragon teeth that turned into soldiers; and the myth of Pygmalion,whose statue of Galatea came to life.In classical mythology,the deformed god of metalwork (Vulcan or Hephaestus) created mechanical servants,ranging from intelligent,golden handmaidens to more utilitarian three-legged tables that could move about under their own power.Jewish legend tells of the Golem,an clay statue animated by Kabbalistic magic.Similarily,in the Younger Edda,Norse mythology tells of a clay giant,rkᬦi or Mistcalf,constructed to aid the troll Hrungnir in a duel with Thor,the God of Thunder.
The first recorded design of a humanoid robot was made by Leonardo da Vinci around the 1495.Da Vinci's notebooks,rediscovered in the 1950s,contained detailed drawings for a mechanical knight that was apparently able to sit up,wave its arms,and move its head and jaw.The design was likely based on his anatomical research recorded in the Vitruvian Man.It is not known whether or not he attempted to build the robot (see:Leonardo's robot).
The first known functioning robot was created in the 1738 by Jacques de Vaucanson,who made an android that played the flute,as well as a mechanical duck that reportedly ate and defecated.E.T.A.Hoffmann's 1817 short story "The Sandman" features a doll-like mechanical woman,and Edward S.Ellis' 1865 "Steam Man of the Prairies" expresses the American fascination with industrialization.A wave of stories about humanoid automatons culminated with the "Electric Man" by Luis Senarens in 1885.
Once technology advanced to the point where people foresaw mechanical creatures as more than toys,literary responses to the concept of robots reflected fears that humans would be replaced by their own creations.Frankenstein (1818),sometimes called the first science fiction novel,has become synonymous with this theme.When Capek's play RUR introduced the concept of an assembly line run by robots who try to build still more robots,the theme took on economic and philosophical overtones,further disseminated by the classic movie Metropolis (1927),and the popular Blade Runner (1982) and The Terminator (1984).With robots a reality and intelligent robots a likely prospect,a better understanding of interactions between robots and human is embodied in such modern films as Spielberg's A.I.(movie) (2001) and Proyas' I,Robot (2004).
Many consider the first robot in the modern sense to be a teleoperated boat,similar to a modern ROV,devised by Nikola Tesla and demonstrated at an 1898 exhibition in Madison Square Garden.Based on his patent 613,809 for "teleautomation",Tesla hoped to develop the "wireless torpedo" into an automated weapon system for the US Navy.
The first electronic autonomous robots were created by Grey Walter at Bristol University,England in 1948