Whilst it was Frank Stuart that gets most of the credit for the famous British Robot Elephant, it was in fact Maurice Radburn, an employee of Frank Stuart's that toyed with the idea of building a Walking Elephant. Frank Stuart had already built a stiff-legged motorised elephant but wasn't entirely happy with it. Maurice Radburn …
Read More “1948-9 – “Bimbo” the Mechanical Elephant prototype – Maurice Radburn (British)”
Popular Mechanics Nov 2003 (Sth African edition) Walk tall, break a leg. Left: It may not look a thing of beauty, but Boris's Gauteng Walker has been known to go places. Johannesburg engineer Boris Ingram thought it would be fun to design a walking machine. That was before he got started… IT'S a fair bet …
Read More “2002 – “Gauteng Walker” – Boris Ingram (South African)”
Partial extract from Mittelmann's homepage – see here for full description of all KYTRONs. What is a KYTRON? A KYTRON is a small autonomous vehicle. Its name comes from KYBERNETIK (German for cybernetics) and ELEKTRONIK (German for electronics). Another way to define a KYTRON would be as a small electro-mechanical device mimicking some aspects of …
Read More “1974-99 KYTRON – Rudolf Mittelmann (German)”
Although the caption is not correct, this is the only acknowledged Macades Mechanical Elephant photo found to date. (Image courtesy Larry Gavette). Update Apr 2011: Eric Smith managed to contact David Taylor, ex retired employee of Luneside Engineering, who has confirmed that this image was taken in the loading bay of one of the many …
Read More “1949 – Macades / Luneside Engineering Mechanical Elephant – (Frank Smith design) (British)”
"Bensina" arrived in Sweden in August 1952. It arrived with Karl Nelles, one of Frank Stuart's elephant drivers. See here for the full Frank Stuart Mechanical Elephant stories. DAGENS NYHETER Onsdo Eq 9 / Elefant „Döp Stockholms nya elefant Barnavårdsdirektör Otto Wangson, längst t. v., bland barnen. ungdomskonsulent Axel Brandt och f. d. tyske krigsfången …
Read More “1952-67 – “Bensina” the Frank Stuart Elephant in Sweden – Frank Stuart (British)”