Description: This is
a VOA Special English General News Report.
See text below
Text:
Robots are more common than you might think, like
this one: the Roomba.
HELEN GREINER: "We want to do something simple that
people could use every day. And that's what inspired
us to build the Roomba. We wanted to be helpful
around the house."
Helen Greiner helped to form iRobot, a manufacturer
of robots. She says robots might be part of us in
the future.
HELEN GREINER: "You can have robotics incorporated
into your body, to give back that arm or leg that
you've lost, either in [military] service or through
some accident or disease."
Recently, the Association for Unmanned Vehicles
International met in Colorado. Association president
Michael Toscano says civilian uses of robots are
growing.
MICHAEL TOSCANO: "Whether it be firefighting,
whether it be first-responders, whether it be
disaster response, unmanned systems allows that
human being to be able to do their mission with an
extension of their hands, their eyes and their
ears."
Radio-controlled robots can explode bombs or buried
land mines. Edison Hudson of iRobot says some robots
can swim and can study ocean pollution.
EDISON HUDSON: "We can put them in the ocean and
they'll swim for eight or nine months, collecting
data."
Here, the government's Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency, DARPA, demonstrates a robotic man.
Robert Mandelbaum works for the agency.
ROBERT MANDELBAUM: "DARPA has a history of inventing
things like the Arpanet, which is the father of the
Internet, that was in the 1960s, Saturn V rockets,
stealth aircraft."
This robot is the Autonomous Robotic Manipulation
program, also known as ARM. It can examine objects,
find one with a design, and move it from one place
to another. Mandelbaum says more difficult work
could be possible in the future.
ROBERT MANDELBAUM: "Pick up a gym bag, unzip it,
reach inside, feel around without visual feedback,
and find an object that's inside the gym bag."
In this way, a robot might itself find a hidden bomb
or help a disabled person with his clothing. DARPA
plans to let anyone write computer software for the
robot, then go on the Internet and watch a model
perform the work. I'm Faith Lapidus.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
