A robot is a machine that can move and do certain tasks and work.
Robots are controlled by a computer program or electronic circuitry. They may be directly controlled by humans. They may be designed to look like humans, in which case their behaviour may suggest intelligence or thought but they do not have feelings. Most robots do a specific job, and they do not always look like humans. They can come in many forms.
In fiction, however, robots usually look like people, and seem to have a life of their own. There are many books, movies, and video games with robots in them. Isaac Asimov's I, Robot is perhaps the most famous.
People have been interested in building machines that do work for us for a long time. But it takes time and money to build just one machine, so early ideas were not built.
Leonardo da Vinci designed a man-shaped machine to look like a knight in 1464. It would be controlled with ropes and wheels.
Other engineers and dreamers drew mechanical men. In 1920, Karel Čapek wrote a story about them, and he used a word from Czech that is connected with 'work': robot.
The most successful robot designs in the 20th century were not made to look like people. They were designed for use. George Devol made the first of these, the Unimate, in 1954, with one arm and one hand. General Motors bought it in 1960. The next year, it started work in a factory in New Jersey, lifting and stacking pieces of metal that were too hot for people to touch. The engineers could program it, and reprogram it if they had to.