a history of cybernetic animals and early robots
A catalogue of Cybernetic Animals, including pre-Cybernetic Creatures
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)”
This toy was available for purshase in France in 1950 by the French Hatchette toy company. It was invented by Jacques Maurice Robert Leblic and the French patent 998,830 was granted on 26 September 1951. The bumper-bar at either end operates a reversing switch for the drive motor. When a lamp is shone on the photo-electric cell, …
This is a place marker under the Cybernetic Animals category. See other posts.
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 …