2. Robotics is the study of mechanical devices that function as some part or all of the human body.

3. There are three types of robots.  Androids are robots intended to look like human beings. A cyborg (CYbernetic ORGanism) is a human being with artificial organs or parts, or a robot with a human brain. I think that is very stupid though and don't count them. Droids are robots governed by the three laws of robotics (see #9) and totally devoted to their human masters.

4. There are about 200,000 robots operating in the world (by a 1995 estimate)

5. Today's robots are called the first generation robots. They typically work in factories perfoming precise and/or repetitve tasks  such as welding, drilling, lifting, spray painting and other functions. They also help build other robots, so one could say that robots reproduce. That would make one an idiot though, wouldn't it?

6. Second generation robots are being developed now and should eventually be able to:
    a. See or at least be able to recognize between different colors and shapes
    b. Feel with proximity sensors or strain gagues
    c. Speak or communicate by way of sound, keyboard and/or visual signals
    d. Move to work areas that need attending
    e. Diagnose what parts need to be fixed or replaced

7. Mechanical creatures were created long before the term robot was ever used. It is said that Ctesibius (300-270 BC) made statues that drank and moved and birds that sang. Philon of Byzantium (220-200 BC) supposedly created performing statues that were powered entirely by water.

8. The robot's first public appearance was in the 1920 Karel Capek Play, R.U.R, which stood for Rossum's Universal Robots. The story features millions of human-like robots manufactured by the inhabitants of a remote island. At first, the robots are in geat demand and are immensely successful, but they are eventually used for war and rebel against their human leaders.

9. The Three Laws of Robotics, written by science fiction author Isaac Asimov in the 1940's are:
    1. A robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm
    2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law
    3. A robot must protect it's own existence as long as such protection doesn't conflict with the first or second law.

10 the first movie robot appeared in the 1897 movie The Clown and the Automaton. Some other robot movie stars include Maria in the 1914 movie The Golem: Gort, an alien police robot, in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951); Ro-Man, an ape-like robot in Robot Monster (1953); Gog and Magog in the 1954 film Gog; Robby the Robot in The Forbidden Planet (1956) and Invisible Boy (1957); Huey, Dewey and Louey in the 1972 film Silent Running; and R2-D2 and C-3PO in Star Wars.