(Has anyone built this model? I wouldn't mind getting some more pics and possible Youtube clip of this.)
Walking Steam Boat
Above model by Anthony Burkitt.
The Meccano Steam Boat Construction Set is part of popular the Crazy Inventors series of 5 multi model motorised sets.
You can build 3 different unique models with the 363 wood, metal and plastic parts in the Steam Boat Crazy Inventors Erector Set. Included in the set are a legs with suspensions, an anchor with chain, gears, tools and a character. A 6V motor (requires 4 AA batteries -included) allows the vehicle to really walk.
During some earlier research on Walking Machines, discovered an article in The Salt Lake Tribune. (Salt Lake City, Utah), March 09, 1913 headlined "The Giant Mechanical Mosquitoes Of Dr. Gustav Luchy." Now that it's come time to write it up, I see that Lyle Zapato's in his blog ZPi has already done a fine job in researching the material. So I will just add the picture and text transcribed here.
Picture Diagram Illustrating the Inventor's Idea of the Development of the Luchy Machine, Drawn from Sketches of the Small Working Model. The Essential Points of the Invention Can Be Grasped Easily by Study of the Carefully Worked Out Illustration. The Artist Has Shown the Machine at Work in the Antarctic, Boring Through the Ice Cap Down into the Internal Fires of the Earth. While the Inventor Has Suggested the Possibility of Tapping Earth's Heat in This Way, Other Scientists Believe Such a Development Highly Improbable. Not Only Would the Tools Have to Be of Impossible Length and Size, but It Would Not Be Possible to Generate Enough Power to Run Them. Besides, the Internal Fires, When Struck, Would Destroy the Tools Instantly. The Future of the Invention Lies, It Is Believed, in Smaller Machines Which Are Able to Carry Men into Places Inaccessible to Other Means of Conveyance and at the Same Time to Provide Shelter.
Giant Mechanical Mosquitoes to Conquer Nature!
Astonishing Machines Suggested by a Swiss Scientist to Open Up Earth's Remotest Places, and to Make Impossible a Repetition of the Captain Scott Tragedy
Milan, Feb. 20.[1913]
SELF-MOVING mechanisms modelled on the lines of gigantic mosquitoes and designed to enable man to conquer Nature in those places where the climate or the formation of the country make it impossible for him to enter or to remain for any length of time have been invented by Dr. Gustav Luchy, a Swiss scientist. Dr. Luchy, who has been collaborator with the Chevalier Pini, [actually Ing. Guiseppe Pino] the inventor of astonishing machines for exploring the sea bottoms, asserts that if Captain Scott had been equipped with one of his mechanical mosquitoes he could have made his way to the South Pole within a few hours after leaving his base. He also claims that the machines will make impossible any repetition of the Scott tragedy [from 1912], and will enable man to wrest from the Antarctic continent its mineral treasures without exposing their operators to the slightest danger.
Despite man's boasted mechanical progress, his engines of locomotion are singularly limited. The locomotive is dependent upon rails; the automobile demands at least a fairly smooth surface on which to run, and the flying machine as yet lacks efficient carrying power. None of the three is equipped to provide adequate shelter for any length of time in parts of the earth's surface where without shelter man cannot exist. Dr. Luchy's problem was to find a mechanism which could be independent of rails, would not be deterred by obstacles impassable to the automobile, would have practicable carrying power, and would provide shelter to a sufficient number of men for a sufficient length of time to enable them to do whatever they had set out to do.
In the formation of the mosquito he claims he found the combination of leg height with carrying power that he desired. The appearance of the machines in action would recall vividly the appearance of the Fighting Machines of the Martians in H. G. Wells's "War of the World's," a description of which is reprinted on this page. [See original for excerpt under the title "The Weird, 'Living' Machines of the Octopus-Like Martians".]
Only small working models of the mechanical mosquitoes have as yet been made by the inventor, but these seem to be as practicable as the paper plans promised. A large working model forty feet high when the long, articulated legs are fully expended, is now in course of construction. In the body are the engines which, provide its motive power and the quarters for a crew of ten men. The head is nothing more than a huge engine, from which are operated the drills, cutting tools, lifting cranes or whatever it is that is necessary for the work at hand. The inventor has in mind still larger machines built on exactly the same lines. He believes that there is no limit to the size of his mechanisms, and that it will be possible to build a mechanical mosquito big enough to walk through the shallower depths of the ocean, and to be powerful enough to cut through earth's crust to the internal fires—the same plan that has been suggested by the famous astronomer, Camille Flammarion, as a solution of the problem of our future source of energy when our coal beds give out.
The Luchy machines, besides being foreshadowed in Wells's fanciful story, have actual predecessors in travelling stages in use at Whitby, England, for marine work. These machines, the invention of Messrs. W. Hill & Co., are now being used for the construction of concrete breakwaters and similar operations. A description of their simpler mechanism will serve to make a trifle clearer the mode of locomotion of the Luchy machines. The Hill stages have eight legs and feet, four of which are used at a time when in motion. There are two massive steel framework structures, one inside the other, the outer being square, and the inner rectangular, the latter being somewhat smaller than the other. The legs, comprising stout members, which can be moved up and down vertically for a considerable distance, are fitted at the corners of each stage, and are pointed at the lower end to secure a firm grip upon the rocky seabed.
The walking action is secured as follows: The outer frame has its front legs lowered until the spuds (or feet) secure a grip upon the seabed. The legs of the inner stage are then raised to clear all obstructions when the stage is moved for ward the full extent of its travel, which brings it against the forward end of the outer stage, when its legs are lowered to the ground. The legs of the outer stage are now elevated vertically, so that the latter rests upon the former.
The outer stage is now moved forward until the inner stage is brought into contact with the rear end of the outer stage. The legs of the last named are then lowered, those of the inner stage raised, and the same cycle of operation is repeated.
The "walking man" is quite a massive affair. The outer frame is 48½ feet square, and it stands 33 feet high from the bottom of the spuds to the working deck level. The inner stage is 29½ feet by 40¼ feet. The result is that the machine can make a forward stride of about ten feet, while the inner stage can move sideways for about three feet. The feet are raised and lowered by screw gearing driven by electric motors. A complete movement can be effected in fifteen minutes.
It has been found that, with this travelling stage, work can be continued in the roughest weather. Indeed, it was the heavy seas experienced at Peterhead that led to its invention.
The Luchy machines have six articulated legs, three on each side of the body. Each leg ends in a deeply ridged foot, designed to give gripping power and to insure stability. The parts where the legs come from the mechanical body move on ball joints, thus giving free movement in all directions.
A study of the diagram on this page gives more clearly than any written description could, the essential principles of the Luchy invention.
In the Antarctic are enormous fields of mineral wealth. Captain Scott reported great coal beds and evidences of platinum, gold, iron and other useful minerals have been reported by other explorers. The great question has been how to get this mineral wealth away from such a place. The land is frozen and for a great part of the year is swept by terrific blizzards, in which man can hardly live, much less work. But it is claimed for the Luchy invention that several machines, each capable of holding crews of forty or fifty men, could be taken down to the Antarctic land mass. There they could be adjusted and could be effectively worked for the greater part of the year at least.
The boring tools in the head of the mosquitoes can be manipulated entirely from the inside of the machine itself and the body of the mechanism provides perfect shelter against the worst climatic conditions that could be encountered.
The machines will be made of steel and aluminum, and are not inordinately heavy. They are run by the Diesel oil machines, and the problem of fuel is the difficult one. It would be with coal. It will even be possible to use one machine as an operating mechanism and to use several others as carriers for whatever ores or other earth's treasures their crews are after.
For work in deserts, where the only means of access is by caravan, it is thought that the Luchy machines will be extremely useful. They do away with the necessity of erecting elaborate buildings or elaborate fortifications against hostile tribes, and can move easily and swiftly from place to place. They carry their own supplies and their own means of movement, and so are not dependent upon their surroundings.
In tropical countries, where locomotive travel is impeded by the vegetable growth, the machines can be equipped with cutting tools, and could clear a path to whatever point aimed at in a fraction of the time compared to the slow methods now in use.
Finally their use as war engines, as terrible as the fanciful "walking tripods" of Mr. Wells's Martians, is being brought to the attention of the Italian Government.
It is only fair to say that many scientists are skeptical as to the practicability of the machines. They grant that they will have limited use, but doubt if they can be extended to the deep sea wading size predicted by Dr. Luchy. Complexity of parts, weight and the enormous energy needed to run them on a large scale are put forth as arguments against their unlimited use.
Like Zapato, I also cannot find another mention of Dr. Gustav Luchy. Zapato makes a comment assuming Luchy is Italian, be he is Swiss and collaborated with Guiseppe Pino who is an Italian. I've tried searching on variants of Luchy's name, but currently without success.
The new computing box 'Bionic Robots' builds on the 1994 PROFI ' I'm walking' set . New in this case is that the models built so now the "catch curve", should read: they do not only run straight. By driving two power motors, the robot with 6 and 4 legs can not only forward and backward, but also to the left and right. But they also need a little brain in the form of INTELLIGENT INTERFACE, which is loaded with LLWin programs. Then take the machine running the true environment through various sensors.
The neologism "Bionic" is derived from the words "biological" and "Technic" composed and can perhaps with "art from nature" rewrite. It will not only learn the machine running, other solutions can be found by observing nature. The best known example is probably currently the self-cleaning surface coatings, modeled on the lotus leaf.
"Then there are the Meccanoids – nice models, but Bert Love was very critical of them. He thought that the gearing was wrong and that the feet were badly designed. He wrote an article on them – was it in an early Constructor Quarterly? -showing one of them rebuilt."
"Roger Hall presented a model from the manual for the Meccanoids set of the late 1970s. To make it move along without falling over, Roger followed the advice of Bert Love and substituted a 60:15 gear pair for the 57:19 pair that would have been supplied in the original set. (The models were originally designed to use the 60:15 pair, but typical of the disorganisation of Meccano Ltd just before its demise the correct pair was unavailable so they used the 57:19 pair – with disastrous results for the operation of the model!)"
Does anyone know of the Meccano employee who designed this kit?
Japanese Automotive Technology is procreation "biological robot" machine
Has developed a bio-mechanical robot became the prototype of the "Mekamo" ["Mechamo"] series of Gakken, the late Mr. Ryuichi Tomiya. In person is said to be the pioneer of automotive engineering in Japan, after graduating from the Faculty of Engineering, Chiba University, joined the Corporation automobile manufacturing (Nissan rear) in 1934, he has been involved, such as the Datsun, the design of the finest cars of many underneath. Toyota also served as technical advisor after, it was someone like the history of Japanese Automotive Technology itself exactly.
At one point, based on the idea that pops into the midst of a study of the suspension system of the car, the Tokyo Institute of Technology professor Masahiro Mori is a Japanese robotics guru Mr. Tomiya this, and (at the time, now professor emeritus) robot is a prototype of Mekamo jointly build. This was a robot made of aluminum, similar to natural organisms. It is the whole thing to work to convert complex movements using the crank gear and the rotary motion of the motor of any one. Was what I was born to be a result of the pursuit from the point of view of mechanical engineering, "at how little energy, yet simple structure, or forced to move in a way that makes sense" of them. According to Mr. Tomiya, "the pursuit of these results, it has become something like the movement of the animal happened to" It seems to be that. Initially, these robots, named "Mekanimaru" ["Mechanimals"] was coined in the mechanical + animals. It is of about 1968 (1968). Since is 1972 (1972), was to be released in the name of this is called "Mekamo" ["Mechamo"] been brought to Gakken later is was was needed four years still about to commercialize it.
Products to be "material" instead of "toy"
When you then, Mr. Mori and Mr. Tomiya has been appeared on educational television NHK, I introduced this Mekanimaru. Then, immediately after the broadcast query, from toy manufacturers such as "I want to commercialization," seems to have to rush. Two of the developers had developed without thought of the initial commercialization. However, we were inundated with queries that is so strong it was the meaning that "these things are established it as a commodity" called. However, as a developer feeling "being sold as just a toy can not be convinced" that was strong. Are those who were born from the study of (suspension) suspension device of the car, Mekanimaru, as the mechanism is exactly the materials of "linkage" exactly. If you sell anyway, there was a desire to sell to them as "material" and not a toy. Mr. Mori is now that there is also the author of "The Science of years ○" of Gakken at the time, is demonstrated in front of the president of Gakken of the time there is also such edge. So, the electronic block Gakken know, department toy of Gakken at the time (we have become a separate company now) because it was dealing with a toy and educational to say the toy, I meet even glasses your teacher forest I think he was. President who is also the founder of Gakken is seems to have decided that "instantly from trying to commercialize this interesting" to see the movement of the Mekanimaru. However, since it was hard. In order to mass-produced products is essential. How do I mass production of metal robots have never seen. Has singled out was standing here, was Mr Ishiyama Gakken employees yuan. After studying mechanical engineering at the University, through the company or toy manufacturer of mechanical design, Mr. Ishiyama, he had just joined the Gakken time. Ishiyama said, "because I was doing the mechanical engineering," I It is said that "we have to work in raining suddenly feeling that" you do. Experience in mechanical design and toy design was Mr. Ishiyama rich already, when I started to see the metal handmade robot I heard that Mr. Tomiya Menkura~tsu. Things you've never seen exactly, where no idea Do I need to design how … and a disciple as a research student in the laboratory of Dr. Tomiya Sagamihara time by Shamei, Mr. Ishiyama, the design of the robot I was supposed to learn from scratch.
The birth of "Mekamo" Gakken
Mr. Ishiyama who was ordered to developers of Mekamo suddenly. Admitted to his laboratory in Sagamihara Tomiya, through the Institute daily rent an apartment close to the Institute, he was devoted to the development is likely from morning till night. This apartment Gakken generation was borne, because it is no convenience store era, yet everyday life is so was pretty lame. We should not be developed as work since we will ask them to rent apartment in company money, what is not to commercialize anything. That pressure seems to have been considerable. I have heard about once boss of Gakken come to check the progress of a week, especially, was a most melancholy. While the first study of the link mechanism, in Tomiya Institute, he began writing a drawing toward commercialization in reference to Mr. Tomiya Mekanimaru made by hand. Under the guidance of Mr. Tomiya, write a rewrite drawings. I continued for about two years seems to have a repeat of this intently. Even though the cause drawing, I do not wake up in the drawing exactly what Mr. Tomiya made. Since we launched as a product to mass production, mass production in mind, which can not be part of the assembly will change the structure. The original Mekanimaru was handmade by Mr. Tomiya, became the birth of "Mekamo of Gakken", at the stage of Mr. Ishiyama was designed for mass production in mind. Mekamo was originally developed as a product for the elementary school. However, when we launched, a user could center around high school students from a junior high school student. Assembly and for the split was difficult, as many cases, query for children that can not be assembled well in elementary school, that "does not work" has been justified I was in a lot of company. In addition, many cases that are being brought in for repair shop model of the town, I heard that in the model shop Irassha~tsu also was familiar with the repair of Mekamo. Therefore, series that was easy to assemble Minimekamo little was planned. I did things in this series, the drawing was made in 1973 by the cheaper prices significantly reduce the number of parts. In this way, a big hit that first shot Mekamo series was released in 1972 (1972) in July, he often had not been shipped three million monthly. However, an unexpected challenge to Mekamo series was good was waiting. It was the oil crisis that hit the whole of Japan.
Trials of the first oil shock
First oil crisis occurred in the fall (1973) 1973. I think many people remember the commotion that toilet paper one day suddenly disappeared from the supermarket. Situation that leads to soaring raw materials, oil shock gave a very serious blow to the Japanese economy as a whole at the time. I was influenced by a very large Mekamo this fact also. I was forced to raise when not endure to soaring raw material by the oil shock, there is Mekamo. Because he was so significant increase Inchiu~amu was ¥ 1800 to ¥ 3500 for example, this is in terms of sales has gone Mekamo sizable impact. On the other hand, Mekamo itself has received high praise from all quarters. Is often used as teaching materials in the Faculty of Engineering of the University, particularly in Waseda University and Tokyo Institute of Technology, Mr. Tomiya had been an instructor lectures, seems to have been done Mr. Ishiyama served as an assistant designer. In addition, in the Okinawa Ocean Expo was held in 1975 (1975), the exhibition was held in the Hall芙蓉Mekamo. Furong Pavilion theme is something called "bionics of the Sea", (which was called by the name Mekanimaru here) was "Aquarium" machine exhibition of its center. In this case, with the theme Mekamo sea creatures were displayed number. This seems to have the activities of Mr. Ishiyama Gakken is also versatile, greater involvement in the exhibition itself.
The late 1970s it became a turning point
It was Mekamo you've evaluated from various quarters, I could not do if we do not fight in the second half of the 1970s, will continue to up the cost of plating by environmental regulations have become stricter gradually, and the high costs further. In addition, it is also likely to have become gradually more query "can not be made well." In fact, on the radio that "years of scientific ○" had been put in the appendix of Gakken, from what type of winding your own coils, have been wrapped in advance, did you change something ready-made, but it was around the end of the 70s just . In the editorial department, I had to him for sending to make those coil wound neatly each time, because there are a lot of complaints similar too, he is now with the appendix is wrapped with a pre-coil forced I was Tsu. As we did become less environment or later, we will move on to another rapidly from "what make with their own hands," interest of the children from this era, just that it can make something to devise their own I think. The second half of the 70s, I think it may have been the era that just hit the tipping point. Mekamo also, it is not possible while being massaged with the times like this, just to continue the production, he was discontinued at the beginning of the 1980s, while the results will be missed.
Over time, that can be reprinted
At the time, Mr. Ishiyama et al, we worked desperately to reduce costs whether somehow unable to continue production. I heard also try to manufacture brought into Hong Kong and China mold, China at the time does not have technology as much as now still, it is seems to have given up because they could not be to the level you want to sell as a commodity.
I think right now, you can re-release Mekamo, and largely due to changing times greater. As a direct factor is that many of the part owing to technological advances may irony China. However, I think that it can also be in the form like that, regardless of the world once again today, products that disappear into the waves of the times while being spared the past, whether it is not of such significance that there. So we also think Mekamo this series, and I want to sell for a long time as a member of the "adult science" From now on, I hope you'll watch warmly.
Similar aquatic models from 1978
The Department of Mechanical Aquarium "Marine Science Museum" is located in the second floor of the museum, and the machine is called Aquarium (Mekanimaru). Born in 1978 as the theme "Learning from sea creatures, think about the future of ocean development," and mechanical aquarium was reopened in Exhibits aware coexistence with stronger creatures in 1995. Here, (Mekanimaru) animals are exhibited machine to analyze the behavior and function of sea creatures, was created based on that data. Because they adapted to the environment in which to live, that reproduce by machine to analyze the function and these actions, behavior of marine animals, the hint of making marine robot needed to develop ocean way is not obtained from the idea, or was born Mekanimaru.
Click on the above to be taken to a video clip of these.
EDUCATIONAL BAIT CATCHES STUDENT'S INTEREST
Japan Natsot/Engcomm Duration: 2.50"
At a marine Science Museum southwest of Tokyo, everything is not as it seems. Tanks contain rare examples of sea-life, as well as the unexpected. In what's become known as the "mecquarium," mechanical fish dart through the weed. Their purpose is to teach children how robots move and encourage their interest in science, at the same time. Children can manipulate the controls of the 150 mechanical fish, all hand-made by museum staff. Curator Tadanobu Ishibashi has crafted the museum's latest exhibit, a mechanical lobster. Its sensors enable it to detect food from the seabed floor. It can also spot enemies, like the blue ringed octopus.
