a history of cybernetic animals and early robots
March 23, 1954 ROBOT DEMONSTRATED: In Cranston, R.I., yesterday—Sherwood Fuehrer, 13, operated the controls of a robot he built from cans, gears, motors, die castings and other articles too numerous to mention. The robot —5 feet 11 inches tall and weighing 92 pounds—can hold a plate of cookies and pass them to guests. [Below] The …
Read More “1954 – “Gismo the Peaceful” – Sherwood Fuehrer (American)”
Tin Can With An Idea – An imaginative Kansas teacher ( Bill Allen, Hamilton School in Wichita, Kan.) builds a robot to stir his students' interest in classroom science. Disappointed with his first-year performance as a general science teacher at Hamilton School in Wichita, Kan., Bill Allen figured that what he most needed was something …
see full pdf here. Personal Computing FEBRUARY 1978 p56-61 BERT (excerpt) Building Your BASIC Robot Robots vary in sophistication and control structure, from Mars-walking space probes and industrial assembly robots to self-motivating household pets and computer-controlled "turtle" drawing robots. My interest in these simple mobile computer input-output devices, robots, led me to construct my own …
Patent number: 209468 Filing date: Jul 26, 1878 Issue date: Oct 29, 1878 see pdf here. Although a patent for a toy, the walking mechanism is what's important here. On the whole, I have found that toys, particularly those that actually made it into production, show proof of concept in most cases, and that future …
Read More “1878 – Toy Mechanical Horse – Andrew J. Davis (American)”
Patent number: 200266 Filing date: Aug 4, 1877 Issue date: Feb 12, 1878 see full patent here. The Independent 01 Mar 1927 p5 A man by the name of Doyle, … invented a power horse that was little short of a marvel of ingenuity and that imitated the movemenents of a real horse almost perfect|y. …