SOP for MS admission in Robotic Engineering

Hello,

First of all It is a pleasure to meet you! I am a Mechanical Engineer applying for a MS in Robotics Engineering in various universities as UPENN, WPI and others. I am having a hard time writing my SOP, specially my first paragraph to get the attention of the reader. That is where I would like to ask you for your opinions.

My SOP's directions are pretty straight-foward, so its dificult to make an introductory paragraph that explains why I wanted to pursue Robotics in the first place.The directions are:

Please discuss your academic and career objectives. Be as specific as possible about the area in which you plan to study. Please discuss your experiences and background in engineering.

I dont think I would have a problem answering this, but I would like to polish a good intro to smooth the transition into the answer, to cautivate the reader and to not answer in a "cold-turkey", impersonal form.

Also, I don't know the word limit for UPenn (I have searched everywhere). For WPI it is a 4000 word limit (I find it a little exagerated). I don't know if maybe this intro paragraph is too long or if I could use the long word limit in my favor. Im in the process of finishing the rest of the essay, I can post it here if you would like to see it.

Here I have a rough draft of my first paragraph (271 words).
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My interest in Robotics sparked one rainy Sunday afternoon, from an unexpected source. Turning on the TV on a leisure time from school work I stumbled upon a documentary about automatons across history. I marveled as I began to see mechanical machines created between the 14th and 19th century that could do complex actions without the need of modern electronics; these machines seemed to do the impossible, such as play the piano, fire arrows at a target, and emulate scenes from everyday life such as imitating a praying monk. I was fascinated as they explained some of the ingenious mechanism that made them work. A certain automaton marked me the most: "The Turk", a chess-playing automaton of the 18th century that could challenge human opponents to a game of chess, and often won against various chess grandmasters. The Turk gave the illusion that it had a mind of his own, by knowing how to play, getting impatient if his opponent was slow to take his turn, and abruptly ending the match if the opponent tried to cheat and make an invalid move. And although controlled by a human chess player, The Turk was a fascinating mechanical contraption that relied on complex mechanism and creative solutions to show an illusion that captivated great minds like Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon and Edgar Allan Poe. After the show was over, I was left with an enormous hunger for knowledge. I wanted to know more, and more importantly, I wanted to be able to create complex machines with the same creativity, elegance and simplicity of the solution as the ones that inspired my future career choice.

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Thank you for your time in reading my SOP and commenting, I know you guys do it on your free time to help others, and I appreciate it a lot. If I can help you in any way please tell me.

Thank you.

Hello Chalumeau. Thank you for your response!

In regards to The Turk beating some chessmasters, it was not that a robot was beating the players per se. The Turk was controlled by a human (a fellow chessmaster himself). The geniuos in the machine was in fooling the viewers into believing that the machine was the sole responsible for its competitive playing style (the "illusion" I mentioned above). The Turk hid the controller of the automaton really well, and complex mechanism enabled him to control the automaton to give a competitive chess play. Chess is also a really old game, played competitively in the 18th century.

This is a really short clip about the documentary that explains it really well (3 min). Add www to the link to see it.

youtu.be/RdT4yG8wczQ

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Does anyone have any opinions about the opening paragraph? Maybe errors in spelling or a suggestion about form and ideas?

Thank you for your time.

Ha. ha
I'm terrible at chess, but I've felt used like an automaton sometimes.
Is there a documentary about human automatons?
Why people set up others for failure? or incite problems?

Hello Chalumeau,

Sorry, I do not know about documentaries in those areas, I really see is documentaries in the sciences.

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On another note:
Seeing the part of The Turk, should I re-write it to make it more undestandable? Maybe stating first that the automaton is controlled by a human chess player?

Thank you.

I thought automaton meant something that was automated--didn't require human intervention.
I'm confused as to why they lumped it in with machines. As you said, it was more of an illusion or a trick.
It just doesn't make sense to me. Sorry.

Yes you are right, I think ill just answer what they are asking without entering in unimportant detail, thank you!

Ill post my SOP when I finish it.