Japan is famous for making robots (机器人). But now China can make good ones, too. Do you remember the robot show at the 2016 CCTV Spring Festival Gala? Over 500 robots danced together. That show was great. Well some robots came to our school and I took a picture of one. Look!

A company in Shenzhen made the robots. Our teacher borrowed some of them from the company to celebrate our school’s science festival.

When the robots came to dance in front of us, all of the students became excited and velled. With the music on, the robots moved (移动) their arms up and down. Then, they bent (弯下) their heads and knees like real people. The robots even stood on their heads like hip-hop (街舞) dancers. It was amazing!

Later, a bigger red robot came out of the dancers. It could even talk. We were really surprised at that.

It was a wonderful show and we all enjoyed it. With more robots, we hope our life will become better and better in the future.

How did people tell the time before clocks were invented?

At first, the ancient people looked up at the sun and could tell it was the middle of the day when the sun was directly overhead in the sky. They also knew when it was morning or evening.

Later, the Egyptians used sticks. These sticks measured (测量) time during the day. The sun shone on the tall stick and the stick made a shadow (阴影). As the sun moved across the sky, the position (位置) of the shadow changed. This would let people tell what time it was.

Over time, the Chinese first used sundials instead of shadow sticks. The sundial has a type of shadow stick on it. As the sun shines on it, a shadow appears on the numbers. Each number stands for an hour of the day. But sundials don’t work at night or on a cloudy day! There are no shadows unless the sun is out.

Water clocks used water to measure time at night. Water dripped (滴落) slowly from one bowl into another. The level of the water in the bowls showed the time.

People also used sand-glasses. You may have seen one. Some games still use sand-glasses. The sand falls from the top of the sand-glasses to the bottom. It measures short amounts of the time. The more sand falls, the more time has passed. When the sand has finished falling, you have to turn the sand-glasses over.

A．

B．

C．

D．

For three days towards the end of 2018, England’s second largest airport, Gatwick, had to cancel hundreds of flights. Over 140,000 passengers were left stranded with nowhere to go. The reason? The local police had received 92 reports of a drone (无人机) being seen flying above the airport. Even though there was not a single photo of this drone, it was decided it was too dangerous for airplanes to take off or land at Gatwick Airport.

Ever since drones have become available (可获得的) to the public, there have been concerns about what people may actually do with them. It’s fine to have a drone to take amazing videos and photos for your own enjoyment. It’s not fine for a simple drone bought from a local electronics store to be used to send drugs or to be part of illegal (非法的) activities.

This is something that has been challenging both the police and the military (军方) for many years. Time has been spent searching for ways to combat drones being being used for illegal purposes. For example there were suggestions that it would be possible to block an illegal drone’s signal to stop it from flying. However, none of these solutions were used when Gatwick Airport had a problem.

Just a few months later, a company in California called Anduril announced that it had designed a solution to the Gatwick drone problem. They called it The Interceptor. The Interceptor is actually a drone itself. However, it is as heavy as a bowling ball. It can fly at 160 kilometers per hour and is designed to crash into another drone and destroy it—without destroying itself. It is controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), but will not attack another drone without confirmation from a human controller first. Anduril has now started building The Interceptor and sending them to the military in both the USA and Great Britain. Confidence is so high in this company. It has been able to raise $120 million from banks to help with its development.