a history of cybernetic animals and early robots
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 …
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Want to lie in your hammock and mow the lawn in repose? The Homko Robot mower can be maneuvered by a remote control panel, one lever for forward, stop and reverse, and another for right and left. Since the cord that attaches this brain to the mower is 40 feet long, you can mow 40 …
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William "Bill" M. Brobeck joined the UC Berkeley lab in 1937 and moved several years later to Orinda with his late wife, Jane Knox. Their home became a local landmark in the mid-1950s, after Mr. Brobeck used his engineering talents to build an automatic lawn mower. Neighborhood kids would gather outside the couple's backyard to watch …
Read More “1954 – Radio-controlled Lawnmower – William M. Brobeck (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: Mechanix Illustrated, Oct, 1938 (from blog.modernmechanix.com ) Builds Remote Control Lawn Mower Device Attaching two electric – motors, an old paint can, a wooden mixing bowl from a kitchen, sundry gears, wires and drive belts to a regulation lawn mower, Alvin Lodge, an unemployed mechanical engineer of Millersville, Pa., constructed a device that enables him …
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