1971 – “COSME” – Le Chevalier de L’Espace – Jeanne Renucci-Convers (French)

Cosme, le chevalier de lumière… est le dernier né et le géant des automates.            Nous voilà bien loin des premières poupées articulées. Cosme n'est pas seulement colossal (5 m. de haut, 1.350 kg), il a de l'ambition et veut synthétiser en lui l'humanité présente et future dans le contexte technique qui est le nôtre.                                            Animé …

1931 – Shoe-Wheeled “Walking” Bicycle – Marie Glory (French)

Modern Mechanix, Sept 1931. Cast-off Shoes Make Tires for "Rough Rider" Bicycle IF YOU don't know what to do with your old shoes, here's a suggestion—make bike wheels out of them. No less a unique stunt has been performed by Marie Glory, a well-known Parisian bicycling enthusiast, as the photo at left shows. The regular …

1977 – “HILARE” Autonomous Mobile Robot – French

"HILARE" An acronym of "Heuristiques Intégrées aux Logiciels et aux Automatisms dans un Robot Évolutif". Designed in 1977 at the Laboratoire d'Automatique et d'Analyse des Systèmes du C.N.R.S Toulouse, (LAAS), it is the first French autonomous mobile robot equipped with ultrasound sensors and laser telemetry. My friend David Buckley with HILARE, to give a comparison …

195x – “Tati” the Cybernetic Dog – owned by Daniel Dennett (built in France)

From Daniel C. Dennett's Home Page http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/incbios/dennettd/dennettd.htm [Mar08] REWARD for information! I found it in an antique shop in Paris. It was made in France in the 1950s, so I have named it Tati, in honor of Jacques Tati (whose classic film Mon Oncle captures the same era with the same ingenious and humorous use …

1952 “Anatole” the Robot Secretary – A. Grouvel (French)

In 1956, there were a couple of press reports of Anatole, the robot secretary was on show at the Paris Office Equipment Exhibit. Claims that French engineer A. Grouvel constructed him four years earlier (making it 1952). At the exhibition, the robot exhibited its ability to talk and print envelopes. VIDEO CLIP There is a …