1952 – “Theseus” Maze-Solving Mouse – Claude Shannon (American)

Internals showing N-S, E-W carriage, Relays, Uni-selector, motors, amongst other electrical components.  See 18 mins 51 secs in for 27 seconds. See 9 mins 16 secs in for 32 seconds. As the 1952 maze solver was recently at the MIT Museum. Picture from Life Magazine 28 July 1952. Top trace is showing the first pass …

1951 – SNARC Maze Solver – Minsky / Edmonds (American)

In 1951 Marvin Minsky teamed with Dean Edmonds build the first artificial neural network that simulated a rat finding its way through a maze. They designed the first (40 neuron) neurocomputer, SNARC (Stochastic Neural Analog Reinforcement Computer), with synapses that adjusted their weights (measures of synaptic permeabilities) according to the success of performing a specified …