How to Build a Robot as a Beginner? A Step-by-Step Guide to Building the Simplest Robots
Robots are fascinating and everyone loves them. Witnessing a human-like robot, helping you with your work with no favor in return, is dreamy. If you write programs correctly, you can use them for innumerable purposes and build them in any shapes and sizes. Just think about having a rob0-pet who fetch your bathrobe and bake toast for you, it’s wonderful and it’s mechanically feasible.
Robots have existed among us for centuries now and they are the most trending topic of the 21st century. You can find them in toy stores as well as assembly lines that make machines and toys. They also build your cars and look for leaks in the sewer pipes. Moreover, movies give us the most radical futuristic vision of how robots are going to affect our daily lives.
The best part is anyone can build robots, you don’t need a degree or seminars to learn to make one. It, indeed, all starts from here, from you at this very moment. This article takes you from being an amateur to a master in building challenging robots.
But before that, we need to agree on one specific meaning of the word “robot”. What's a robot for you, others may have a completely different interpretation for it. So, let’s clear out the meaning first.
Here, we are going to talk about the following topics:
What are robots?
Initially, it sounds easy to answer it, but when you go deep, the definition becomes blurry. For example, would you consider a car or smartphone a robot? Most would say no. However, they do have robotic features. The car has a computer and a motor. Smartphone has sensors, batteries, and chips.
So, what actually is a robot? The definition is vague and it’ll always be because it means different things for different people. But we can narrow it down through the following parameters:
- A robot needs to have some sorts of moments. Every robot that you see in movies has certain moments whether it’s walking, fighting, or flying. They all move in some way.
- It’s interactive with its environment. The interaction happens through programmed instructions, radio control (RC) system, or sensors. For example, while driving a remote-controlled car you instruct it to turn when there’s a wall and move straight when the path is clear.
- It has to have a definite purpose. For example, a vacuum cleaner (Roomba) or a garbage collector.
So, any moving object that responses to stimuli or your actions to perform certain actions can be considered as a robot.
Myths about robots
Due to sci-fi movies and novels, lots of robotic rumors are circulating around. The sad reality is all these inventions are far away from reality. These three rumors below are the most popularised ones, which are nothing but fantasy.
1. Developing a HAL-like robot is a piece of cake
Stanley Kubrick did a marvelous job in 2001: A Space Odyssey, an academy award-winning movie. The best addition was HAL, an artificially intelligent robot with human-like intellect. However, building something like him in real life is far far away from the truth. A computer doesn’t have a sentient life form. Moreover, robots can fake mannerisms, but that’s a work of complicated programs. In the end, this just a simulated intelligence and nothing superficial.
2. Robots are humans and they can think as humans do
Movies like Ex-Machina and Metropolis are pretty futuristic. In fact, these are way too futuristic such that their humanoid robots are no way near the beginning stage in real life. Yes, that’s right. Humanoid robots are the first thing that may come to your mind when you hear about this subject. However, this is a sad truth making a robot walk is more intricate than making it roll, let alone make it behave like a human.
3. One robot can be used for multiple applications
The best and reliable robots are built to serve only one purpose, for instance, a vacuum cleaner. Mostly, robots intended for multiple purposes turn out to be not that effective. Though this is a feasible idea, it demands time and cost, both of which can be saved by building single-purpose robots.
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