a history of cybernetic animals and early robots
Anthony Deutsch, aged 26, with his maze runner from Oxford University's Institute of Experimental Psychology. The head-lamp on the trolley is turned on, and various photo-electric cells are mounted at strategic points in the maze. Deutsch's Maze runner was considered the most sophisticated at the time. It was capable of transferring its training from one maze …
Read More “1954 – Maze-Solving Machine – J. A. Deutsch (British)”
The above is an excerpt from Cordeshi's book "Discovery of the Artificial". Hugh Bradner was at the Psychology laboratory at the University of Miami, Ohio. His robot learnt by trial and error. The cart was 12 inches long, 6 inches wide with 2 wheels on a front axle. a driving wheel in the middle, and …
Internals showing N-S, E-W carriage, Relays, Uni-selector, motors, amongst other electrical components. See 18 mins 51 secs in for 27 seconds. See 9 mins 16 secs in for 32 seconds. As the 1952 maze solver was recently at the MIT Museum. Picture from Life Magazine 28 July 1952. Top trace is showing the first pass …
Read More “1952 – “Theseus” Maze-Solving Mouse – Claude Shannon (American)”
In 1952, Richard A. Wallace built a Maze Solving Computer as a model of "machine learning". His definition of learning is "The ability to modify a response to a stimulus because of past experience with the stimulus." see full pdf here.
Maisie the Robot (c1977) with David Strange. From a comment below, David Strange informs me that the robot he called Maizie was a maze solving robot whilst he was working for the BBC Open University. It was used in several programmes on cognitive psychology. Thanks David. From further correspondence with David (Dec 2015): The whole of …
Read More “1977 – “Maizie the Robot” – David Strange (British)”