Ex.12. Read and translate the following text orally without a dictionary. List the main points in Ukrainian.

“Here comes the Robot”

The first robots appeared on Olympus: gold mechanical maids served Hephaestus, the god of fire, divine smith and patron of craftsmen. Attempts to create a mechanical being looking like a man and capable of carrying out his work have penetrated with the history of civilization. The robots of today, industrial automatons and mechanisms, have no similarity with man but, being faster and more accurate than him when working, replace him in carrying out monotonous, and dangerous work ...

The word "robot", which has become an international technological term, was coined (создавать) in 1920 by the Czech writer Karel Chapek. He used it to designate a mechanical worker, looking like a man, possessing unusual physical strength, infinite capacity for work, and totally devoid of such human drawbacks as fatigue, distraction and emotions. Literature had known about such creatures long before Chapek. It is curious to note that all kinds of mechanical assistants described in literature suffered from anthropomorphism, i.e., they looked like a man. In practice there is absolutely no need for this.

The first robots, perhaps, did not yet have the right to be called such because they could not work by themselves, but worked only on operator's instructions, being in a safe place. The operators controlled a whole set of "multiarticulate" hands,carrying out necessary actions for maintaining, for example, nuclear reactors, manipulated in sterile conditions, etc. The first manipulators were very heavy and clumsy. But the more engineering thought developed, the fewer anthropomorphous elements appeared. There were more flexible and mobile devices which could squeeze into narrow openings, move on flat vertical walls, and even on the ceiling.______________________

By freeing man from routine physical Work, robots greatly change the content of labour, resolve the manpower shortage problem, and eliminate the need of man's presence in harmful and dangerous conditions. This is where the social significance of robot technology lies.

Most people have come across the term "industrial robots". These are programmable controlled automatic devices which replace man in performing functions that were once thought to be purely human operations. Nowadays several thousand industrial robots are already operating at enterprises across the country. But this is only a first step.

Robotics is the art and science of the creation and use of robots, i.e., in other words, robot technology. Today practically all sectors of the economy and industry are looking forward to introducing industrial robots. But robot building is not simple and certainly not cheap. If every sector begins to build its own robots, it will be impossible to avoid unnecessary duplication of research and development, and large sums will be wasted. Therefore the need is to concentrate all efforts in robot technology in one pair of hands, in a powerful inter-sectoral scientific and technical organization. Only in this
way it is possible to ensure the maximum standardization of production of industrial robots and multipurpose automatic manipulators. There are two rational ways in the field of robotics. The first one is to build standardized modules-unified elements on the basis of which it will be easy to assemble, in different combinations, robots for the most varied of purposes. The second way is to create an inter-sectoral exchange fund 4 of robots so that research and development of designers in different technical fields should be within the reach of all interested organizations and enterprises.

Thanks to scientists’ and designers’ efforts, the family of industrial robots, man's friendly mechanical assistants, has been growing rapidly both qualitatively and quantitatively.

Notes:

multiarticulate hands — багатосуставні руки

manpower shortage — брак робочої сили

to look forward — очікувати

inter-sectoral exchange fund— проміжний обмінний фонд

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Ex. 8. Find in the text English equivalents to the following words and word-combinations.	\|	Ex.13. Discussion points.

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