a history of cybernetic animals and early robots
(Source: Nat Geo Nov 1970) The patient that always comes back Lifelike in its apparent distress, a plastic- skinned manikin known as Sim One —for simulated patient No. 1 — serves as a durable guinea pig for an anesthesia student and his instructor, right, at Aerojet-General Corporation's Electronics Division in Azusa, California. Driven by a …
(Image courtesy Tim Hornyak – author of "Loving the Machine" 2006) Text from the same book, p38 … In 1929, Fritz Lang's Metropolis, which featured the female robot Maria, opened in Japan and proved a wild success. The following year saw an exhibition titled "Tokyo in the Year 1990" at the Matsuzakawa department store in …
GIANT MECHANICAL MAN WALKS CITY STREETS For centuries mechanicians have busied themselves with mechanical figures, or automatons, Which could imitate the actions of men and beasts. They have devised mechanical butlers, flute players, buglers, tambourine players, and chess players; but it remained for an American inventor to build the steel pedestrian Which draws along the …
Read More “1919 – Giant Walking Mechanical Man – Fern Pieper / Chas. Oehler (American)”
(Source: Popular Mechanics May 1918)
“Ruffnik’s moniker was a riff on the name of the first Russian space satellite “Sputnik,” launched the same year that 3-D Danny premiered on Channel 13. Constructed by the prop department at WKY-TV, Oklahoma City, and shipped to Channel 13 in a large, coffin-shaped crate, “Ruffnik” was a virtual duplicate of the robot used in …