a history of cybernetic animals and early robots
As a child, I really wanted one of these! Of the three built, two may still be in existance at the Rancho Los Amigos. **Video clip via youtube – has both the Moon walker prototype and the chair** Either an early version, or the prototype for the later Iron Mule Train see here. Cam-leg set-up …
Read More “1966 – “Moonwalker” Disability Walker – Jack Miller / W.C. Baldwin / Brodsky (American)”
1983 "Trojan Cockroach", a Six-Legged Hydraulic Walker by Ivan Sutherland. The Sutherland Walker was a six-legged all-terrain robotic designed by Sutherland Sproull Associates with the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University under contract to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The robot used a gasoline motor to power its legs and required a driver …
Read More “1983 – “Six-Legged Hydraulic Walker” – Ivan Sutherland (American)”
ODEX I is a tele-operated walking machine. Initially developed by Steve Bartholet. Pic shows wooden mock-up. (pic from SERVO June 2004 article here.) see Popular Science Sep 1984 pdf here. see Robotics Age Sep-Oct 1983 pdf here. See ODEX-1 patents here: There was an ODEX II and and ODEX III. ODEX I is now in …
Read More “1983 – ODEX-1 Functionoid Walking Robot – Stephen J. Bartholet (American)”
Galveston Daily News 13 Dec 1896 (pdf here) In the Deep of Time by George Parsons Lathrop in collaboration with Thomas A. Edison For The News-Copyrighted. This story is the result of conversations with Thomas A. Edison. the substance of which he afterwards put into the form of notes written for my use. His suggestions …
Read More “1896 – Lathrop & Edison Walking Machine – (American)”
La Porte City Review 16 Nov 1882 p2 (see pdf here) Fiction originally from Harper's Magazine How Aluminium Won The Grand Prix by William B. Greene "'This is my creation," continued Joe, stroking the animal's mane. "It is I who have breathed life into his nostrils." "Is he mad?" I thought to myself. "What!" I …
Read More “1882 – “Aluminium” the Compressed-Air Horse – Greene (American)”