Task 1 

Prepare a 200- to 300-word history about the National Critical Technology (NCT) technical application your team has selected to solve a local or national problem.

The first electronic autonomous robots were created by William Grey Walter of the Burden Neurological Institute at Bristol, England in 1948 and 1949. They were named Elmer and Elsie. These robots could sense light and contact with external objects, and use these stimuli to navigate.[

The first truly modern robot, digitally operated and programmable, was invented by George Devol in 1954 and was ultimately called the Unimate. Devol sold the first Unimate to General Motors in 1960, and it was installed in 1961 in a plant in Trenton New Jersey to lift hot pieces of metal from a die casting machine and stack them.

Commercial and industrial robots are now in widespread use performing jobs more cheaply or with greater accuracy and reliability than humans. They are also employed for jobs which are too dirty, dangerous or dull to be suitable for humans. Robots are widely used in manufacturing, assembly and packing, transport, earth and space exploration, surgery, weaponry, laboratory research, and mass production of consumer and industrial goods. 

Task 2

 Cite three detailed examples of research done in the past 3 to 5 years which focused on the topic your team has selected.

Include:
• The funding agency
• The principal investigator’s name
• Institution where the research is or was being conducted

  American Cast Iron Pipe Co. is funding Wolf Robotics in the recent development in welding. There problem is that welding underwater, it was too difficult by hand and they had to invent a machine that could more easily perform that task. So they recently built a machine that has two welders side by side for a stronger weld instead of just one side of the metal. They also added a technology that uses through-the -torch measurements.

  Engineers from Future Robotics Technology Center (fuRo), a division of the Chiba Institute of Technology, recently presented their latest invention - Wireless Intelligent Networked Device (WIND), which is a master-slave controller that consists of small SiP (System in Package) processors (measuring 50x35mm) connected to 3D position sensors installed on a vest and able to identify body motions. Every time the wearer of the vest makes a move, the latter is transformed into robot commands that are wirelessly conveyed through Bluetooth and which, in the end, make the robot mimic the respective move.

Cog was a project at the Humanoid Robotics Group of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was based on the hypothesis that human-level intelligence requires gaining experience from interacting with humans, like human infants do. This in turn requires many interactions with humans over a long period of time. Because Cog's behavior responds to what humans would consider appropriate and socially salient environmental stimuli, the robot is expected to act more human. This behavior also provides the robot with a better context for deciphering and imitating human behavior. This is intended to allow the robot to learn socially, as humans do.

Task 3

Based on the research your team has done, explain how the NCT application chosen has advanced scientific knowledge.

Autonomous robots have helped us in many ways and have even gotten rid of some problems. Some of the advancements in this area has been in the battlefield. We are now more than ever are trying to find ways where mechanical devices would take the place of a human being so casualties can be avoided. UAV’s are a good example of this because a remote controlled plane can be sent in with a camera to scout areas with possible enemies.
Other advances include house cleaning such as the vacuum or lawnmower that does its job by itself. Also assembly lines have adopted the idea of robots that build a product by themselves. Scientists can also use these assembly line robots to create new ones. These machines have showed us our knowledge is expanding in this field. This is because of the advanced tasks they can perform compared to older robots.
On another note sensors also fall into this category and they too have been quickly advancing over the years. Things such as fish finders going from dots on a screen to something that can tell the size of a fish and depth of a lake. Also things like ultra sound that can give us an idea of what things look like below the surface.