~Past Robots~

Robots have been around for as long as 250 BC, when the Greeks invented water clocks and movable figures. The first humanoid robot was designed by genius Leonardo da Vinci in 1495. It was a knight that could sit up, move its head and jaw and wave his arms, But about 240 years later, Jaques de Vaucanson MADE the first humanoid robot+. It was a Shepard like person that could play the tabor, the pipe and the flute. He was called the flute player. Since then, lots of robots have been made, especially in the 20th century. One example is the Wabot-1. It was made in Waseda university, Tokyo, Japan. It could communicate with a person in japanese.

Timeline of Robotics

·        1495 — Leonardo Da Vinci designs a human-like robot that looks like a knight, known as Leonardo’s robot.

·        1738 — Jacques de Vaucanson builds his first humanoid robot called the Flute Player. It was a life-size figure of a shepherd that could play twelve songs on the flute and the Tambourine Player that could play a flute and a drum or tambourine.

·        1774 — Pierre Jacquet-Droz and his son Henri-Louis created the Draughtsman, the Musician and the Writer, a figure of a boy that could write messages up to 40 letters long.

·        1921 — Czech writer Karel Capek introduced the word “Robot” in his play “R.U.R” (Rossuum's Universal Robots). The word “Robot” comes from the word “robota.”

·        1970 — Miomir Vukobratovic has proposed Zero Moment Point a theoretical model to explain two-feeted movement.

·        1972 — Miomir Vukobratovic and his associates at Mihajlo Pupin Institute made the first outer- structured robot.

·        1973 — In Waseda University, in Tokyo, Wabot-1 is built. It was able to communicate with a person in Japanese and to measure distances and directions to the objects using external receptors, artificial ears and eyes, and an artificial mouth.

·        1984 — At Waseda University, the Wabot-2 is created, a musician humanoid robot able to communicate with a person, read a normal musical score with his eyes and play tunes of average difficulty on an electronic organ.

·        1985 — Developed by Hitachi Ltd, WHL-11 is a biped robot capable of static walking on a flat surface at 13 seconds per step and it can also turn.

·        1985 — WASUBOT is another musician robot from Waseda University. It performed a concert with the NHK Symphony Orchestra at the opening ceremony of the International Science and Technology Exposition.

·        1986 - 1993 Honda developed seven biped robots which were designated E0 (Experimental Model 0) through E6. E0 was in 1986, E1 - E3 were done between 1987 and 1991, and E4 - E6 were done between 1991 and 1993.

·        1989 — Manny was a full scale anthropomorphic robot with 42 degrees of freedom developed at Battelle's Pacific Northwest Laboratories in Richand, Washington, for the US Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.

·        1990 — Tad McGeer showed that a biped mechanical structure with knees could walk passively down sloping surface.

·        1993-1997 — Honda developed P1 (Prototype Model 1) through P3, an evolution from E series, with upper limbs.

·        1995 — Hadaly was developed in Waseda University, to study human-robot communication and has three subsystems: a head-eye subsystem, a voice control system for listening and speaking in japanese, and a motion control subsystem to use the arms to point toward campus destinations.

·        1996-1998 — Saika, a light-weight, human-size and low-cost humanoid robot, was developed at Tokyo University. Saika has a two-DOF neck, dual five-DOF upper arms, a torso and a head. Several types of hands and forearms are under development also.

·        1997 — Hadaly-2, developed at Waseda University, is a humanoid robot which realizes interactive communication with humans. It communicates not only informational, but also physically.

·        2000 — Honda creates its 11th bipedal humanoid robot, ASIMO.

·        2001 — Sony unveils humanoid robots, dubbed Sony Dream Robot (SDR), a small humanoid entertainment robot.

·        2004 — Appears RoboSapien, a toy-like affordable humanoid biomorphic robot designed by Mark Tilden.

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Leonardo da Vinci's robot

Robot working in a factory