A. Choose the most suitable heading for each paragraph.

1. General Motors Company.

2. The father of robotics.

3. Rossum’s Universal Robots.

4. The first symbolic mention of the term “Robotics”.

B. Make up different types of questions for each paragraph. If you have some difficulties use the grammar reference at the end of the book or the Internet sites:

https://www.e-grammar.org

http://www.grammarbank.com/question-types.html

1921 – the term “robota” exists in several Slavic languages and the original meaning is heavy monotonous work or slave labour. The Czech playwright Karel Čapek wrote “R.U.R”. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), which had its premier in Prague. By that the word robot received another meaning. In the play “R.U.R.” the worker robots serve the humans by doing their jobs and the robots therefore have no need of feelings or intellectual life. After a while they revolt and kill their human master Rossum and also destroy all life on Earth. In the play the robots are characterized by both super human strength and intelligence.

1942 – the well-known Russian writer of science fiction Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) first used the word “robotics”, to describe the technology of robots and predicted the rise of a powerful robot industry. The perspective here is, in contrast to the robot described by Čapek, good robot that serves the human being. Asimov visualized the robot as a mechanical creature (automaton) of human appearance having no feelings. The behavior was dictated by a ‘brain’ programmed by human beings, in such a way that certain ethical rules were satisfied. The term ‘robotics’ was, thereafter, introduced by Asimov, as the science devoted to the study of robots, which was based on three fundamental laws.

1954 – George Charles Devol, often called the father of robotics, invented and patented a reprogrammable manipulator ‘UNIMATE’, from ‘Universal Automation’. For the next decade, he attempted to sell his product in the industry, but did not succeed.

1960 – an entrepreneur Joseph F. Engelberger acquired Devol’s robot patent and was able to modify it into an industrial robot and form a company called ‘Unimation’. General Motors automobile company in New Jersey (USA) purchased and installed the first industrial robot on assembly line to perform repetitive or dangerous tasks.