a history of cybernetic animals and early robots
Unicorn-One ( Universal Controllable Robot ) is truly universal and a robot that you can build for between two- and-four hundred dollars, depending on your ingenuity and scrounging abilities. It is fully mobile and has the ability to use its arms and hands. It can be controlled by a cable link to a console, by …
Read More “1980-1 – Unicorn-1 – James A. Gupton, Jr. (American)”
Creep Mk-2 – 1962 A radio controlled programmable robot with an arm and gripper, designed by T R Bridge, Radio Control Models & Electronics April 1962. Creep was programmable by recording, on a tape recorder, the control tones then playing back the tones and feeding them into the transmitter (see text in pdf below). The …
'HEXY' – a real sexy homing device. Published in Radio Control Models & Electronics, March 1965. This simple light-seeking device is novel in that it scans when the drive motor is reversed.
The JPL/AMES Manipulator arm came about around 1972. It utilises the arms of Vykukal's Hard Space Suit (see patent infomation below). The patent has Hubert C. Vykukal, Reginald F. King, and Wilbur C. Vallotton as the joint inventors. Around 3 models were built. "Unilateral" means that there is no "force reflection" (feedback) provided in this …
Read More “1972 – JPL/AMES Manipulator Arm – Hubert “Vik” Vykukal (American)”
Not so well known is that there were two main types of R2-D2's in the original Star Wars space opera. The models operated by Kenny Baker, the other a radio-controlled (R/C) model. Visually the main difference is the Kenny Baker model only ever had two legs, and the R/C version had three, although the single …
Read More “1975-6 – R2-D2 (from Star Wars) – John Stears (British)”