Servant or Master?

· Scan the text and consider the best title:

A. Imaginary robots in film and fiction.

B. Robots: the fantasy and the facts.

· Read the text again and put the sentences and phrases (a-g) below in the correct places (1-7).

a in factories, laboratories, or warehouses

b In this play machines behave like people

c like an arm

d can ‘see’ the environment and

e like handling nuclear or radioactive materials

f The reality is less exciting,

g understand the messages from the sensors and

We can thank the world of literature for the words robot and robotics. The word robot was first used by the Czech playwright Karel Capek in his 1921 play, RUR(Rossum's Universal Robots). (1). Asimov used it in a short story in 1941. Robots often star in films too, for example dangerous machines like Terminator or cute ones like R2D2 in Star Wars. (2) Industrial robots don't have personalities and they don't think like people. Most real robots are designed to save people from dangerous jobs (3) or boring, routine work (4) A simple robot is made of: A mechanical device (5) that can react to its environment. Sensors that (6) give information to the device. Systems or computer programs that (7) give the device instructions.

· Find words in the text that mean:

1 always done in the same way

2 respond to a change

3 a piece of equipment designed to do a particular job

4 part of a machine that can sense heat, light, etc.

· These are scrambled words from the text. Work in pairs and try to find what they are. Write them down.

SOOBRITC SOURAEHWE

EIAMNOTTR SOSREN

INUROET NOSINCUTTIR