Automation Facts for Kids

Minimum human intervention is required to control many large facilities such as this electrical generating station.

Cartoon from the 1936 Summer Olympics looks forward to the year 2000. Television technology lets spectators watch events at home while radio carries their promptings and applause to loudspeakers in the stadium. It appeared in the Olympia-Sonderheft of the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung.

In the context of engineering, automation is when a device or a machine is changed in such a way that it can fulfill the task it was designed for without the need of human interaction. Very often, this means that the machine is fitted with an additional system which takes control of its functions. For example, a centrifugal governor controls a steam engine.

Benefits of automation are that the output of the machine or device are more uniform, and that product quality is improved. A system that is not fully automated needs human interaction is needed: Many of the tasks involved are repetitive and boring. In general, machines are also designed so that humans no longer need to lift heavy weights or do dangerous things. With automation, human intervention is limited or absent.

Images for kids

Ctesibius's clepsydra (3rd century BC)
Steam engines promoted automation through the need to control engine speed and power.
A flyball governor is an early example of a feedback control system. An increase in speed would make the counterweights move outward, sliding a linkage that tended to close the valve supplying steam, and so slowing the engine.
Automated pharmacology production
An automated online assistant on a website, with an avatar for enhanced human–computer interaction
KUKA industrial robots being used at a bakery for food production
Automated laboratory instrument
Automated milling machines

Automation facts for kids

Images for kids

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