Robotics falls within the broader field of studying articulated (dynamic) systems. A plethora of everyday objects constitute such systems, as they offer degrees of freedom in movement.

This is what differentiates these systems from unarticulated ones, which school curricula generally focus on exclusively until late in the educational process. Articulated systems do not necessarily require advanced knowledge of mechanics or automation. They can be approached from a purely geometric perspective coupled with functional analysis through the composition of spatial transformations (articulated chains). Introducing articulated systems broadens the scope of teaching to include the wide variety of man-made objects.

For illustration purposes (and beyond...), refer to the following paper:

• Liu et al., "Survey on Modeling of Human-made Articulated Objects", 2024 - https://arxiv.org/html/2403.14937v2