Robotics and its "offspring"—robots—have long been a source of fascination to human beings, both in and out of the scientific community. The term "robot" was first used in a 1920s play written by Czech author Karel Capek (1890-1938) and comes from the Czechoslovakian word robota, meaning work. Today, robots have come to mean programmable machines whose output copies the function of human beings in one respect or another. Robotics, a term coined in 1942 by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov (1920-), is the study of the construction, maintenance and use of robots.

The origins of robotics can be traced back to early Egypt, where priests used steam-activated mechanisms to open temple doors, thus showing their "mystical" powers. Ancient Greeks, Chinese and Ethiopians built water and steam-powered statues and experimented with other water powered devices. By the 1700s, automation was utilized to a much greater extent...