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"Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is."
- Isaac Asimov

Self-Charging Robot  
  A robot that is able to autonomously find an electrical outlet and plug itself in to recharge.  

Amanda glared at the little object on wheels - it was about the size of a rollerskate and it seemed to be considering what to do next. It turned its photoelectric scanners this way and that, waving its jointed grappling arms about. Then it appeared to make up its mind, and trundled over to a wall socket in the baseboard, plugged itself in and proceeded to recharge itself.
Technovelgy from Callahan and the Wheelies, by Stephen Barr.
Published by Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1960
Additional resources -

The Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner can now perform this feat, just fifty short years later.

Also, compare to the charging arm robot from Masters of Chance (1941) by William Morrison and to the Autonomously Recharging UAV from Roger Zelazny's 1980 novel Changeling.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Callahan and the Wheelies
  More Ideas and Technology by Stephen Barr
  Tech news articles related to Callahan and the Wheelies
  Tech news articles related to works by Stephen Barr

Self-Charging Robot-related news articles:
  - Human Teaches Robot Ping Pong, Then Challenges It
  - Marvin Intel's Self-Charging Robot
  - 'Wheelie' Robotic Server
  - Self-Charging Nao Robot Video
  - Linux Robot Masters Automatic Charging
  - Tesla Robotaxis Will Automatically Recharge Themselves
  - Tesla Will Have Metal Gear Snake Autocoupler, Musk Confirms

Articles related to Robotics
Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
Robot Hand Creeps Along, Separate From It's Owner
Korean Exoskeleton Suit F1 Helps You Put It On

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Science Fiction in the News

Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'

Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'

Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'

Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'

Anthropic's Claude AI Creates Legal Citation From Whole Cloth
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'

Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said.

'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande
'...using a neutralizing electronic impulse.'

Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space
'...the Hole is something like a vortex or a whirlpool?'

Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'

DARPA Wants 'Large Bio-Mechanical Space Structures'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'

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