The terms robot and robotics is used frequently in this blog without giving a precise definition. The only thing which is relative sure is how to create robots from a hardware perspective There is a large industry available which is delivering components like servo motors, microcontrollers and gear boxes. Remote control toy cars can be seen as robots as well.
The more interesting and unsolved problem is how to program such devices. This remains an unsolved problem. What s available today are an endless amount of academic publication about the question how to program micromouse robots, automate something with pick&place robot and make biped robots walk.3 Artificial Intelligence
A relative new and very advanced technique is learning from demonstration. LfD stands in contrast to the former bottom up robotics. Bottom up robotics was invented in the late 1980s and is the blueprint for today's robot challenges. But bottom up robotics is similar to the BEAM method strongly focused on the robot itself and ignores the underlying game rules in which the machine has to operate.