a history of cybernetic animals and early robots
Johan de Boer's description (from private correspondence 2010) "A second project [ RH: to the Cybernetic Mouse] was the maze where a light was used to indicate the position of an imaginary mouse in the maze. The maze could be changed with small removable barriers. Each square had a small light bulb that would be …
Patent number: 4175 Patent filing year: 1874-01-01 Patent title: STEAM MAN OR WALKING MACHINE Name/City: ROE, CYRENIUS C.: HAMILTON, Ontario, Canada Year granted: 1874-12-15 Source: Star And Sentinel, 08 Aug 1878, p2. Letter from Reading.READING, PA., August 5, 1878. STAR AND SENTINEL,:—The visitors to the sea shore…………….. next column ………………… This looked rather disheartening to …
Read More “1874 – Adam Ironsides – The Steam Man – C. C. Roe a.k.a. Capt. Rowe (Canadian)”
ROBUG: switch-programmable to wake/seek/avoid on light/touch/wind; feelers charged to 90 volts! "In high school [Montreal,1964] he [Hans Moravec] won two science fair prizes for a light-following electronic turtle and a tape-controlled robot hand. As an undergraduate he designed a computer to control fancier robots, and experimented with learning and automatic programming on commercial machines. During his …
Read More “1964 – “ROBUG” – Hans Moravec (Austrian / Canadian)”
The above model from one of my favourite automata artists, Kandamu. For those of you expecting a simple, easy post for Prof. George Moore's "Steam Man", well, it isn't going to be one. The press "announcement" date for the Steam Man is 1893, but Prof. G. Moore had spent two years setting it up [see article …
Read More “1891-1893 – Steam Man – Prof. George Moore – (Canadian/American)”
I have not been able to locate an image of Rowe's Steam Man, or should I say Steam Men as he made at least two of them. There is a possibility that Rowe's second Steam Man was re-incarnated as Prof. Moore's Steam Man in 1891. More on that in a later post. At one time I had articles included …
Read More “1874-1883 Steam Man – Capt. Rowe a.k.a. C. C. Roe (Canadian)”