by Marc Phillippe Babineau

Created on: April 13, 2009

Robotics can be anything from a remote controlled helicopter to a fully functional humanoid, and everything in between. Manufacturers use robots for heavy lifting and menial tasks, repetitive tasks and other jobs that could have been done by humans, but not as quickly. Robots do not require rest or coffee breaks, and they do not go on strike for better pay or benefits, unless, of course, you program them to. If your life long dream is to work with robots, then knowing how to begin a career in robotics, and what majors to take at University would be your first steps, after showing immense skill at tinkering with smaller, computer-based robotics. You will need a strong mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and other related fields backgrounds, with published papers in each field.

Robotics is one of the most interesting and "sexy" of the University degrees, aside from microbiology and maybe some Oceanographic programs. For every 10,000 students that sign up every year, hoping to get into the field of robotics, maybe 20 of them will eventually work with robotics as a career, and not simply out of their parent's basement or garage. Of those 20 students who eventually work with robotics, maybe one of them might be a career robotics designer and manufacturer. Good luck with that.

If you are happy just tinkering with robotics at home, then you might want to cash in on some major life insurance policies. In order to make a perfectly functioning robot, with an insectile exoskeleton, that interacts with it's environments and does not need to be manipulated (like those battle-bots in the robot wars television shows and contests), you would need to perfect artificial intelligence (AI), which has yet to be done. And you would need a few hundred thousand dollars, just to get started in the design phase.

For a career in robotics, of which less than five percent of applicants are successful, you must be published in the field, and have at least two Masters Degrees from a well-known University with major Robotics programs, like MIT. You will need to know all about cooling systems, so that you can make your robot work for longer than a few minutes at a time. You would need to know all about material sciences, for the robot's materials that would have to be able to sustain military strikes, or travel and work in non-Earthly environments (like the cold of space, or the heat of the Martian surface).

Unfortunately, how to begin a career in robotics and how to have a successful career designing and making robots are two completely different things. The majority of people who spend 12 to15 years in University, getting the requisite degrees and knowledge, either end up in other areas of business, like working for NASA, or work in the maintenance department or as part of a robotics laboratorys design team. To work with AI, though, a higher power must be involved, likely an IQ comparable to Stephen Hawkins.

Maybe finding a cure for cancer would be easier?

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