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Oct 11, 1495
DaVinci
Leonardo DaVinci designs a mechanical device that looks like an armored knight. The mechanisms inside "Leonardo's robot" are designed to make the knight move as if there was a real person inside. Inventors in medieval times often built machines like "Leonardo's robot" to amuse royalty. -
Jacques de Vaucanson
Jacques de Vaucanson begins building automata in Grenoble, France. He builds three in all. His first was the flute player that could play twelve songs. This was closely followed by his second automaton that played a flute and a drum or tambourine, but by far his third was the most famous of them all. The duck was an example of Vaucanson's attempt at what he called "moving anatomy", or modeling human or animal anatomy with mechanics." The duck moved, quacked, flapped it's wings and even ate and d -
Dolls
Swiss clock makers and inventors of the modern wristwatch Pierre Jaquet-Droz and later joined by his son Henri-Louis Jaquet-Droz start making automata for European royalty. They create three dolls, each with a unique function. One can write, another plays music, and the third draws pictures. -
automated loom
Joseph Jacquard builds an automated loom that is controlled with punched cards. Punch cards are later used as an input method for some of the 20th centuries earliest computers. -
Difference Engine
Charles Babbage demonstrates a prototype of his "Difference Engine" to the Royal Astronomical Society. He continues his work by designing an even more ambitious project "the Analytical Engine" that reportedly was to usepunch cards inspired by Joseph Jacquard's invention. During his lifetime he never produces a functional version of either machine. Despite this shortcoming he is often heralded as the "Father of the Computer" and his work lives on as the foundation for the binary numbering system -
Madison Square Garden
Nikola Tesla builds and demonstrates a remote controlled robot boat at Madison Square Garden. -
The word Robot
Czech writer Karel Capek introduced the word "Robot" in his play "R.U.R" (Rossuum's Universal Robots). "Robot" in Czech comes from the word "robota", meaning "compulsory labor" -
Controlling Machines
George Devol patents a playback device for controlling machines. -
Turing Test
Alan Turing publishes Computing Machinery and Intelligence in which he proposes a test to determine whether or not a machine has gained the power to think for itself. It becomes known as the "Turing Test". -
Artificial intelligence
John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky start the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). -
Mechanical Hand
Heinrich Ernst develops the MH-1, a computer operated mechanical hand at MIT. -
Robor knows its own actions
The Stanford Research Institute (later to be known as SRI Technology) creates Shakey the first mobile robot to know and react to its own actions. Amongst other achievements SRI was also the research institute that helped bring us modern day laundry detergent in the development of Tide. -
Eliza
An artificial intelligence program named ELIZA is created at MIT by Joseph Weizenbaum. ELIZA functions as a computer psychologist that manipulates its users statements to form questions. Weizenbaum is disturbed at how quickly people put faith in his little program. -
Deep Blue
Richard Greenblatt writes, MacHack, a program that plays chess, in response to an article by Hurbert Dreyfus where he says, a computer program could never beat him in a game of chess. When the program is finished,Dreyfus is invited to play, the computer, he leads for most of the game but ultimately loses in the end in a close match. Greenblatt's program would be the foundation for many future chess programs, ultimately culminating in Deep Blue, the program that beats Grand master Gary Kasparov. -
First Robot Arm
Victor Scheinman, a Mechanical Engineering student working in the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab (SAIL) creates the Stanford Arm. The arm's design becomes a standard and is still influencing the design of robot arms today. -
Star Wars
Star wars is released and inspires a generation of researchers -
SPACE
Deep space explorers Voyagers 1 and 2 launch from the Kennedy Space Flight Center. -
Honda
Honda begins a robot research program thats starts with the premise that the robot "should coexist and cooperate with human beings, by doing what a person cannot do and by cultivating a new dimension in mobility to ultimately benefit society." -
Genghis
A walking robot named Genghis is unveiled by the Mobile Robots Group at MIT. It becomes known for the way it walks, popularly referred to as the "Genghis gait". -
Robot combat
In an attempt to build a radio controlled vaccuum cleaner Marc Thorpe has the idea to start a robot combat event. -
Robot Wars
Marc Thorpe starts Robot Wars at Fort Mason center in San Francsico, CA -
RoboTuna
A RoboTuna is designed and built by David Barrett for his doctoral thesis at MIT. It is used to study the way fish swim. -
Pathfinder
The Pathfinder Mission lands on Mars. Its robotic rover Sojourner, rolls down a ramp and onto Martian soil in early July. It continues to broadcast data from the Martian surface until September. -
Spirit
NASA launches the MER-A "Spirit" rover destined for Mars.
