a history of cybernetic animals and early robots
Self-recognition and the Mirror Dance [Image source: An Imitation of Life, Scientific American, May 1950, p42-45.] 7 . Self-recognition. The machines are fitted with a small flash-lamp bulb in the head which is turned off automatically whenever the photo-cell receives an adequate light signal. When a mirror or white surface is encountered the reflected light …
Read More “W. Grey Walter’s Tortoises – Self-recognition and Narcissism”
Although Squee the electronic squirrel is attributed to Edmund C. Berkeley, Jack Koff (City College of New York engineering student) and Robert "Bob" A. Jensen (until he re-entered the Air Force in June 1951), William Szabo and ECB are all credited with its construction. The opening page from Radio-Electronics mag [Dec, 1951] offers some more info – "Why …
Read More “1950-1 – Squee – Edmund C. Berkeley et al (American)”
Wiener's/Wiesner's/Singleton's 'Moth' – why so many names attached? (extract from below) Wiener wanted the theories put to a practical test. In the late 1940s he teamed up with Dr. J. Wiesner, then in the Research Laboratory of Electronics, and later to become the president of MIT, to build a demonstration-machine with two feedbacks that would …
Read More “1949 – Wiener’s Moth “Palomilla” – Wiener / Wiesner / Singleton”
I have only come across two time-lapse photographs with both ELMER and ELSIE. One has to be careful in interpreting time-lapse photographs as there are possibly different events happening at different times, off picture interference, and possibly different start times of each tortoise. An important observation highlighted by Owen Holland is the direction of rotation …