MetaFilter posts tagged with mechanical

George Julius' Mechanical Totalisator

Fiasco da Gama — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:41:29 -0800

Sir George Julius's Automatic Totalisator, first used by the public in New Zealand, and quickly taken up by racetracks throughout Australasia and North America (warning hideous HTML), automates parimutuel betting.

An Engineer's Delight

DU — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:47:55 -0800

Friday Flash Fun Some stuff I wish I'd known when I started:

It seems like a sparse toy at first, compared to something like Incredible Machine. But it's more free-form and the sparseness is a good challenge.
You can move the pink object around inside the blue box.
The water rod hasn't been of any use to me so far.
You can move the view around by using the Move tool.

"..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.

There's a robot beneath the fluff.

hydrophonic — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:39:41 -0800

In Vestimentis Ursum. Designer Matt Kirkland peels off the fur of mechanized stuffed animals to take a look at the robots lurking within.

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.)

Test Your Mechanical Aptitute

maxwelton — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 21:27:56 -0800

Are you fairly handy? Well how about theoretically handy? Take this test to find out how mechanically apt you are. Hint: be very literal when looking at the pictures and read the questions carefully. Don't over-think. (ie, "bean-plate"). Click on the symbol at lower left to show the question list, which will show you what answered correctly or incorrectly. When you're finished, you can click on any missed question to discover the correct answer.

The X Finger

phrontist — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:06:03 -0800

The X Finger a prosthetic for digital amputees.

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]

A race of atomic supermen which will conquer the world

Smart Dalek — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:51:36 -0800

An' all the hot cats on the block have been doing it too - c'mon now, honey, I wanna do it with you. Anyone hoping to build their own Death Probe without dismantling the vaccum cleaner or floor waxer can rejoice. The creators of Roomba and Scooba have released a barebones version. Add-on software from Microsoft is available, should more ambitious types decide to pair iRobot's tech with LEGO MindStorms pieces.

What is Mechanical Turk?

nitsuj — Thu, 03 Nov 2005 20:26:10 -0800

Complete simple tasks that people do better than computers. And, get paid for it. In 1769, Hungarian nobleman Wolfgang von Kempelen astonished Europe by building a mechanical chess-playing automaton that defeated nearly every opponent it faced. A life-sized wooden mannequin, adorned with a fur-trimmed robe and a turban, Kempelen’s "Turk" was seated behind a cabinet and toured Europe confounding such brilliant challengers as Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon Bonaparte. Excuse me? Ah, yes. The Mechanical Turk, by Amazon.

Spoon — Wed, 21 Nov 2001 09:05:52 -0800

Really, really nice... lots of lovely devices...