Roboteer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please discuss this issue on the talk page or replace this tag with a more specific message.
This article has been tagged since March 2006.

A roboteer is someone who builds robots, usually just for the fun of it or for live competitions. The term is most associated with the sport of robot combat. There are many robotic competitions in which a roboteer may compete, from Robotic-football to Robot Wars and the word roboteer isn't necessarily just used for robots which can think for themselves. The sport of robot combat features two remote controlled vehicles which battle it out in a gladiatorial style contest for victory, these machines are often referred to as robots rather than as rovs (remotely operated vehicles).

There are many roboteers all over the world, with robot combat competitions mainly in the UK and the US while robot football competitions and more autonomous (able to think for themselves, as in the International Aerial Robotics Competition) robots are now becoming increasingly common around eastern asia.

The term roboteer was created by Barbara Krasnov for a story on Deb Huglin, owner of the Robotorium, Inc., in New York City in the early 1980s. Huglin is also a lightweight robotics applications consultant, professionally a sculptor and repatriation archeologist. The word roboteer does not just refer to people who participate in the remote controlled forms of robots. It also refers to those with interests or careers in engineering robotics. Huglin worked with Jim Henson on the design and uses of the robotic mit controller for his experimental television series "Fraggle Rock", a program that is believed by many to have changed puppeteering forever.

Robots have three main elements: the ability to preserve information for a set function (or set of functions), the ability to perform the function(s) and the ability to carry out the functions.

Robots and robotics can be self-controlled and technically have little or nothing to do with human remote control once the original programming has been completed. The robotic unit simply executes the programming. This is different then the remote controlling of motorized devices, which require hands-on manipulation rather than pre-programming by a Roboteer.

Robotics can run independently of people once programmed and the program is initiated. In the case of Artificial Intelligence, the robot learns from experiences and the environment by itself after the program is initiated. Deb Huglin was a member of the American National Standard Institute's Industrial Automation Planning Panel from 1984 to 1989.