The most famous real-life robot in recent memory is probably the Sojourner rover, part of the Mars Pathfinder Mission, built by NASA and sent to Mars to travel its uncharted, pathless surface in Summer 1997. In 1992, Indiana University's own Professor Jonathan Mills invented Stiquito: a simple, inexpensive, six-legged walking robot. Professor Mills envisions one day possibly sending off a group of 1000 or more of these small, insect-like robots into outer space. For more current information about the world of robotics, check out the links on the cool robots page.
We start our journey into programming by writing programs to direct an imaginary robot, named Shakey, through some simple tasks. Shakey lives on a fixed size grid, surrounded on all sides by a high fence. Besides Shakey himself, there are two other types of objects that can occupy his world. The first type of object is a wall. Walls are used to represent obstacles that Shakey must maneuver around, such as hurdles, mountains, enclosed rooms, and mazes. The fence along the perimeter is also composed of walls.
The second type of object in Shakey's world is an item. Shakey is equipped with a mechanical arm that he can use to pick up and put down items. Some of Shakey's tasks involve picking up or putting down patterns made from items, or finding and transporting items.
Whenever we want Shakey to carry out a task in his world, we must supply him with a program, that is, a detailed set of instructions that describes how to perform the task. Shakey can receive, memorize, and execute such a program, assuming that it is written in a language he can understand.
The program can be saved in a file, to be later recalled and executed again and again. This is very similar to the redial feature found on most telephones -- a number is recorded and then played back later (as many times as is desired) at the touch of a button.