When you hear the word \"robot\", you probably get a picture in your mind of a clever mechanical man, perhaps R2D2 or C3PO from the movie Star Wars. That is how most people thingk of robots, but the robots that really exist today are quite different from the robots of comic books, cartoons, and science fiction films and books. Most are simply huge metal arms controlled by a computer. Others are large boxes that move along a track, perhaps carrying parts througha factory. Some are submarines that dive beneath the ocean to work on undersea pipelines or oil rigs or to search for aold shipwrecks.

Robots come in many shape and sizes and have many different abilities. Basicaly, a robot is simply a computer with some sort of mechanical body designed to do a particular job. Usually, it is able to move and has one or more electronic senses. These senses are not nearly as powerful as our own senses ofsight and hearing. However, scientists and engineers are working hard to improve robots. They are constantly coming up with ways to make them see, hear and respond to the environment around them.

Robotics is the science of studying and creating robots. It is a very broad and interesting science, because like humans, robots have many fascinating aspects. It is also a new science. Although people have been imagining and writing stories about robots for many years, robotics has been a real science only since the 1970\'s

Why do we need robots? First, they are hardworking and rliable. They can do dangerous work or wrk that is very boring or tiring for humans. They can work around the clock without complaining and without needing rest, food or vacations. And robots can go places that humans can not, such as the surface of Mars, deep under the ocean or inside the radioactive partsof a nuclear power plant.