a history of cybernetic animals and early robots
Marvin Minsky with his Arm. Photo by Dan McCoy in OMNI Magazine, June 1980. Also called the "Tentacle" Arm. Marvin Minsky – Activating a dead crayfish claw Selected transcript "And that’s the anatomy of the mechanical arm I built that you see in the MIT Museum today" One of the first things that happened was …
Read More “1968 – Minsky-Bennett Arm – Marvin Minsky and Bill Bennett (American)”
1983 M.I.T. Beam Assembly Teleoperator (BAT) The SSL was founded in 1976 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its early studies in space construction techniques eventually led to the EASE (Experimental Assembly of Structures in EVA) flight experiment which flew on Space Shuttle mission STS-61B in late 1985. EASE was designed to evaluate the ability …
Read More “1983 – Beam Assembly Teleoperator (BAT) – University of Maryland (American)”
The 1982-4 – Telepresence Servicer Unit (TSU) Concept. Free-Flying Teleoperator 1. Thrusters 2. Vision sensors 3. Anchor arm 4. Manipulator arm 5. Vision sensor 6. Gripper 7. Thermal insulation 8. Light 9. Light 10. End effector rack 11. Spare part rack 12. Anchor arm 13. Communications and navigation antennas. As awarded under the Space Applications …
Read More “1982-4 – Telepresence Servicer Unit (TSU) – Akin/Minsky (American)”
Seymour Papert's Turtle is included in this category for various reasons: 1. It marks the start of the continuance of our need for realization of concepts in the real world, satisfying our thousands of years old quest to build objects that mimic living things, (typically man's own image, but animals as well). 2. The minimal …
Read More “1969 – The Logo Turtle – Seymour Papert et al (Sth African/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 …
Read More “1951 – SNARC Maze Solver – Minsky / Edmonds (American)”