a history of cybernetic animals and early robots
The above image from Popular Science April, 1933. The Harford Courant Mar 6, 1933 p16 Italian Designs Mechanical Horse From Steel Tubing —- Device Looks Like Grasshopper Stepping Along Road Spezia, Italy—(AP.)—A mechanical horse, designed to substitute for the farm animal or even light tractor, has been invented by an engineer here, Signor D. G. …
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1983 "Trojan Cockroach", a Six-Legged Hydraulic Walker by Ivan Sutherland. The Sutherland Walker was a six-legged all-terrain robotic designed by Sutherland Sproull Associates with the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University under contract to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The robot used a gasoline motor to power its legs and required a driver …
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In 1952, Richard A. Wallace built a Maze Solving Computer as a model of "machine learning". His definition of learning is "The ability to modify a response to a stimulus because of past experience with the stimulus." see full pdf here.
The Thomas Ross Maze Learning Machine showing its feeler tracking the slots of this comb-shaped maze. See complete Scientific American 1933 article titled "Machines That Think" – pdf here.
"Newt" updated showing manipulator. In an email response from Dr. Hollis (2010), I learnt that his old robot is called "Newt," not "NEWT." (It is not an acronym.) He is planning to put together a small web site with lots of pictures and background on Newt, its predecessors and follow-ons. Ralph will send a pointer …