Are they really robots?

[RoboMaster]

Ok, I see where you're getting at. You're right, I guess that would count, but that's like a really specific ambition project for no electronics, like what I mentioned before:

I know what can be done with just mechanics, but I'd be pretty impressed if you were able to make a full fledged "robot" like a hobby robot out of just mechanical parts.

But what I was talking about was more general, like my other example:

...if you scrapped all electronics on your FRC robot, had a really long hand crank with a universal joint that gives power to the wheels, and a similar hand crank for directly altering the steering. That's more of a very fancy mechanism.

PAR_WIG1350 said

if the mechanism is designed to react in response to stimuli (read as forces) in a way that could be considered interaction, that might be debateable.

I would take that to be a mechanism that has interaction (with forces), not something that interprets signals and "thinks" on some level.

He also said

Autonomy is more direct than remote control. why then does a MORE direct system disqualify the device as a robot?

That's confusing to me. Autonomy is more direct in that there's no "middleman," but it's more *complex* in that the robot really thinks and decides. When I say more direct, I mean less thinking/interpreting signals and just direct movement/action.

Hope that helps; does that portray my ideas?