a history of cybernetic animals and early robots
Several feet away, the operator controls the arm from this chair. It can measure out liquid by the drop. "Adelbert"—Science's "Right Arm"—Can Even Write Its Name ALTHOUGH it looks more like a dentist's oversized drill, a gentle-acting mechanical arm called "Adelbert" is actually built like the human arm. It has an elbow, shoulder, wrist and …
Read More “1950 – Remote-control Manipulator – Art Youmans (American)”
ROBOT DRIVER: In Frankfurt, Germany—A motorcycle with a robot driver was one of features of a spring fair. Exhibited by the N.S.U. Motor Company of Neckarsulm, Germany, the robot showed the crowds how to drive the manufacturer's motorcycle. By a system of switches and electromagnets, the robot starts the engine, changes the three gears, drives …
Read More “1950 – N.S.U. Motorcycle Robot Driver – (German)”
Source: Life Magazine, 26 Jun 1950 WITH A REO SALESMAN AT THE REMOTE CONTROLS, THE MOWER DOES FIGURE EIGHTS AND LOOPS ON THE TURF AT MICHIGAN STATE COLLEGE'S STADIUM LAZY MAN'S MOWER It can cut a lawn or a figure 8, all by one-watt remote control Partly to sound out the market and partly because …
Read More “1950 – REO Remote-control Lawn Mower – Paul Rosenberg (American)”
The gasoline-powered Fairbanks-Morse Grass Finder has no cord. Run it around the outside of your lawn once to give it the feel of things and from then on it runs itself, feeling for the high uncut grass with its left hand, as it were, and following along the edge of the previous cut until it …
Read More “1950 – Fairbanks-Morse “Grass Finder” Rotary Power Lawn Mower – (American)”
Source: Popular Science, Mar 1950 Mows Lawn by Radio—Pretty Soft! WHILE his robot lawn mower chugs around the lawn, Jim Walker, of Portland, Ore., takes it easy in his glider, sipping a cool drink and operating the radio controls. Walker, a radio ham, long-time builder of radio-controlled model planes, and president of a …
Read More “1950 – Radio-controlled Lawnmower – Jim Walker (American)”