1978-9 – Mobile Suit Gundam (Fiction) – Yoshiyuki Tomino (Japanese)

Although inspired by Robert Heinlein's "Starship Troopers" that had infantrymen wearing "power suits" that surround their bodies and amplify their movements, most of the Gundam mobile suits were of the "driveable robot" tradition, where operators sat in cockpits and manipulated levers and pedals. The Gundam concept was developed in 1978, with the TV series first …

1978 – An Inexpensive Turtle – Michael Folk (American)

REPORT : An Inexpensive Turtle BUILDING AN INEXPENSIVE TURTLE by Michael Folk Mathematics Department Drake University Des Moines, IA 50311 Two years ago two colleagues and I set about developing a microcomputer controlled programmable robot for teaching1 . The goals of our project were (1) to build a lowcost (less than $75 in parts) device …

1978 – Queen Mary College Mark IV Mobile Robot – Mark Witkowski & Dave Mott (British)

The QMW Mk. IV Mobile Research Robot The final version (Mk. 4) of our first attempts at a mobile robot for machine learning research. It had a somewhat unusual (and not entirely satisfactory) drive layout with wheels at the front of the vehicle. D.C. motor drive was complemented with gray-code shaft encoders. Forward facing sensors …

1978-9 – PV-II 4-Legged Walking Machine – Hirose & Umetani (Japanese)

Photo.2 Sensor based stair climibing walk of the PV-II. KUMO-I (1976, see here), PV-II (1978-1979, Photo. 2). The method of locomotion called “walking” requires considerably more actuators than the wheel me thod of locomotion, the drive system is heavy; and it is not simple to control. However, walking machines, because they can move while separately …