MetaFilter posts tagged with automaton

My Little Pony Wood Automaton

ennui.bz — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 07:02:49 -0800

More Machine Now Than Bird

gilrain — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 10:50:43 -0800

120 years ago, in Paris, Blaise Bontems made a mechanism for reproducing birdsong. More recently, Michael Start restored it to working condition and recorded a video. Michael Start previouslies: 1, 2.

Aaa! Aww! Aaa! Aww! Aaa! Aww!

ocherdraco — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 19:18:12 -0800

A video of cute and terrifying things. (Which is which is left as an exercise for the viewer.)

Electrique Baroque

urbanwhaleshark — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 05:50:57 -0800

A harpsichord automaton. Malcolm Messiter: "After hours of struggling with a soldering iron, suddenly it all became worth it when the system just worked flawlessly. The sheer joy and satisfaction of seeing and hearing it work for the first time was extraordinary. It played Soler’s Fandango, Brandenburg 5, the Goldberg Variations, and even the Flight of the Bumble Bee, late into that first night!" [Project direct link (PDF, from p.27)].

Metal Knee-slappin' Good Time

whimsicalnymph — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 10:24:16 -0800

Animatronic Hillbilly Family Musicians. "Selling due to change in business model." In action.

Pop! ... Pop!

codacorolla — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 11:42:53 -0800

Boston Dynamics is getting close to mastering quadrupedal motion with Big Dog and Cheetah (previously). And are working on bipedal motion with Petman (previously), but how about a robot that is able to leap (up to the top of) tall buildings in a single bound? Sand Flea! IEEE brief on the robot. A rather poor quality video of an earlier prototype of the Sand Flear clearing a 25 foot fence. The purpose of the bot is to provide reconnaissance for the army, and the difference between the earlier build (the "Precision Urban Hopper") and the newer is increased stabilization in air. Boston Dynamics robots not mentioned above the _ahem jump include the all-terrain RHex (YT streaming video), the climber RiSE (YT streaming video), and the adorable Little Dog (YT streaming video).

It was going to be a very scientific evening, until the robot revolted!

filthy light thief — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 13:58:35 -0800

A couple decades after the first appearance of Steam Men in the 19th century, and a few years after the word "robot" was coined, one Professor Harry May from London toured around the US with Alpha the robot. The one ton mechanical man was built from a combination of modern inventions that granted Alpha certain skills, from product model and vocal promoter of the automatic electric toaster, to gunslinger. The problem with giving Alpha a gun was that the robot revolted (PDF, via), shooting his master and creator in 1932. After this incident, Alpha became Mary Ann (via), complete with new hair, a dress, and a soprano voice.

Braitenberg vehicles: How to build a brain

emilyd22222 — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:10:29 -0800

Valentino Braitenberg's 1984 book, Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology was a seminal work for its discussion of how one might design a system (biological or otherwise) in order to generate behavior like that seen in beings with brains. He embarks on a series of thought experiments in which he creates thirteen "vehicles" through simple components that (arguably) display intelligent behavior, evolving in a Darwinian fashion to demonstrate what appears to be high-level cognition. In the past 26 years, with the expansion of internet access and capabilities around artificial intelligence, a number of people have attempted to make Braitenberg's vision into a reality. Beautiful artwork has been inspired by the plans for the vehicles. Now, online simulators allow laypeople to play with the vehicles. You could even build one yourself! Although fascinating at face value, the true depth of Braitenberg's work (as is common with artificial intelligence) may arguably lie in its philosophical and ethical implications. What does this mean for how we conceptualize mental illness and other dysfunctional behavior? How does it affect what we define as free will and intelligent thought?

Al-Jazari's Elephant Clock and other Islamic Inventions

Kattullus — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:14:54 -0800

Al-Jazari is the best-known Islamic inventor of the Middle Ages, famous for his waterclocks and automata. The wonderful History of Science and Technology in Islam has articles on him as well as other subjects. A medieval manuscript of Al-Jazari's masterwork, a book generally known in English as either Book of Knowledge of Mechanical Devices, can be perused in its entirety in flash form. It includes 174 illustrations. If you want to see working copies of his most famous automaton, the Elephant Clock, you can go either to the Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai (Flickr pictures), the Musée d'Horlogerie du Locle in Switzerland (Cabinet of Wonders post about visiting the museum) or Institute for the History of Arab-Islamic Science in Frankfurt (article about the institute from a feature in Saudi Aramco World magazine called Rediscovering Arabic Science).

"..watched him seize a silver fish from under the water and hold up his head and go through the customary and elaborate motions of swallowing it..."

fire&wings — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:02:44 -0800

The Silver Swan is a life-size musical automaton built in 1773 from silver and glass, now housed in the Bowes Museum in County Durham. The clockwork swan rests on a "stream" of glass rods in which little silver fishes swim. When activated the swan preens itself then appears to catch one of the fish before swallowing it in a display which lasts around 40 seconds. The mechanism, built by John Joseph Merlin (who also brought us the rollerskate) includes "six camshafts, a quadrant-and-pinion, chains running up the slender neck and a pair of spring-operated lazy tongs." While this 235 year old swan is still eating fish daily, its real life counterparts prefer underwater plants and cereal crops.

Automata are mechanical objects endowed with life.

Dave Faris — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 22:07:09 -0800

Michael has a large collection of automata. Some are sort of creepy. (more vids on youtube.)

Vintage androids

nickyskye — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 16:51:52 -0800

Karakuri automata are representative of the highest technology in the Edo period (1603 to 1867). Automata were also crafted hundreds of years ago in Europe: The Dulcimer Player by Pierre Kintzing , made in 1772; The Singing Lesson, created by Robert-Houdin; three androids by Jaquet-Droz; the Pooping Duck by Vaucanson (the first link at the top). Ancient robots. The first automaton was created by Al-Jazari: video of his clock. The history of automata [pdf]. Contemporary toy automata. [more inside]

the life and times of an 18th century hoax

KirkJobSluder — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 09:57:14 -0800

I just finished up reading The Turk by Tom Standage (briefly mentioned in passing here) a biography of the chess-playing automaton that toured Europe and later the Americas during the pivotal transition from the 18th to the 19th century. The Automaton was invented as an exercise in national pride by Wolfgang von Kempelen, who considered it a trifle compared to his experiments with mechanical speech synthesis. As a celebrity, the automaton had historic encounters with Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon, Beethoven, Philidor and Charles Babbage, and fictional encounters with the monarchs Catherine the Great, George III and Frederick II. Standage credits it with influencing the development of the Difference Engine, the power loom, Poe's mystery stories, and Barnum's manipulation of the press. The myths surrounding have even caught James Randi, who seems to have been unaware of a colleague's reconstruction based on notes from the last owner.

automata

crunchland — Mon, 14 Apr 2003 22:28:17 -0800

Automaton \Au*tom"a*ton\, n.; pl. L. Automata, E. Automatons. [L. fr. Gr. ?, neut. of ? self-moving; ? self + a root ma, man, to strive, think, cf. ? to strive.] 1. Any thing or being regarded as having the power of spontaneous motion or action.