Question

A team of engineers at Harvard University has been inspired by Nature to create the first robotic fly. The mechanical fly has become a platform for a series of new high-tech integrated systems. Designed to do what a fly does naturally, the tiny machine is the size of a fat housefly. Its mini wings allow it to stay in the air and perform controlled flight tasks.

“It’s extremely important for us to think about this as a whole system and not just the sum of a bunch of individual components (元件),” said Robert Wood, the Harvard engineering professor who has been working on the robotic fly project for over a decade. A few years ago, his team got the go-ahead to start piecing together the components. “The added difficulty with a project like this is that actually none of those components are off the shelf and so we have to develop them all on our own,” he said.

They engineered a series of systems to start and drive the robotic fly. “The seemingly simple system which just moves the wings has a number of interdependencies on the individual components, each of which individually has to perform well, but then has to be matched well to everything it’s connected to,” said Wood. The flight device was built into a set of power, computation, sensing and control systems. Wood says the success of the project proves that the flying robot with these tiny components can be built and manufactured.

While this first robotic flyer is linked to a small, off-board power source, the goal is eventually to equip it with a built-in power source, so that it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers’ fields or on the battlefield. “Basically it should be able to take off, land and fly around,” he said.

Wood says the design offers a new way to study flight mechanics and control at insect-scale. Yet, the power, sensing and computation technologies on board could have much broader applications. “You can start thinking about using them to answer open scientific questions, you know, to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals, but using these robots instead,” he said. “So there are a lot of technologies and open interesting scientific questions that are really what drives us on a day to day basis.”

(392 words)

1.The difficulty the team of engineers met with while making the robotic fly was that __________.

A．they had no model in their mind

B．they did not have sufficient time

C．they had no ready-made components

D．they could not assemble the components

2.It can be inferred from paragraphs 3 and 4 that the robotic fly __________.

A．consists of a flight device and a control system

B．can just fly in limited areas at the present time

C．can collect information from many sources

D．has been put into wide application

3.Which of the following can be learned from the passage?

A．The robotic flyer is designed to learn about insects.

B．Animals are not allowed in biological experiments.

C．There used to be few ways to study how insects fly.

D．Wood’s design can replace animals in some experiments.

4.Which of the following might be the best title of the passage?

A．Father of Robotic Fly

B．Inspiration from Engineering Science

C．Robotic Fly Imitates Real Life Insect

D．Harvard Breaks Through in Insect Study

 

Answer 1

【答案】

1.C

2.B

3.D

4.C

【解析】

【文章大意】主要講述的是哈佛大學(xué)從自然界的昆蟲那里得到了靈感，設(shè)計開發(fā)了第一款機(jī)器蒼蠅。文章介紹了該項研究存在的困難，研究將要發(fā)展的方向和該研究會帶來的好處。

1.根據(jù)第二段的“The added difficulty with a project like this is that actually none of those components are off the shelf and so we have to develop them all on our own”意為類似這樣的項目的一個額外的困難就是，這些組成部件從來就沒有現(xiàn)成的，我們不得不靠自己去開發(fā)，從中可知，困難就是沒有現(xiàn)成的組成部件，即C項。

2.根據(jù)第三段的“he flight device was built into a set of power, computation, sensing and control systems”可知A項是錯誤的。根據(jù)第四段的“While this first robotic flyer is linked to a small, off-board power source”和“Basically it should be able to take off, land and fly around,”可知，目前由于電池等的限制，只能在有限的區(qū)域飛行。因此B項是正確的。根據(jù)第四段的“so that it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers’ fields or on the battlefield”可知該飛行器是在someday將來的某一天才能從不同的地方收集信息，而不是現(xiàn)在，因此排除C項�？v觀全文，講述的是該飛行器尚處于開發(fā)的初級階段，有很多地方需要改善，因此D項廣泛投入使用是錯誤的。綜上所述，選B項。

3.根據(jù)第四段的it might someday perform data-gathering work at rescue sites, in farmers’ fields or on the battlefield可知，A項是錯誤的。B項中animals are not allowed 是錯的，應(yīng)該是difficult with animals,即有些用動物來做試驗(yàn)是困難的，不是不允許。C項在文中并沒有提到以前方法的多少，文中只是說offers a new way to study，提供了新的方法，故排除C項。根據(jù)最后一段的 you know, to study biology in ways that would be difficult with the animals, but using these robots instead，可知，有些試驗(yàn)用動物很苦難，但是可以用機(jī)器人來替代，故選擇D項。

4.文章的重點(diǎn)觀點(diǎn)在第一段，主要講述的是哈佛大學(xué)從自然界的昆蟲那里得到了靈感，設(shè)計開發(fā)了第一款機(jī)器蒼蠅。因此選擇C項，A重點(diǎn)在father，與文章中心不符，B項沒有突出得出的靈感是什么，不夠具體，D項講的是在昆蟲研究方面的突破，與文章中心不符。