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An ancient Greek engineer named Ctesibus made organs and water clocks The concept for his clock was fairly simple; a reservoir with a precise hole in the bottom would take 24 hours to empty its contents. The container was marked into 24 divisions.
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The device is a complex mix of gears which most likely calculated the position of the sun, moon or other celestial bodies. It is considered to be of Greek origin and was consequently named "The Antikythera Device"
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The Hero of Alexandria designed an odometer to be mounted on a cart and measure distances travelled.
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Leonardo da Vinci designed what may be the first humanoid robot though it
cannot be confirmed if the design was actually ever produced. The robot was
designed to sit up, wave its arms, and move its head via a flexible neck while
opening and closing its jaw. -
Blaise Pascal invented a calculating machine to help his father with taxes. The device was called the Pascaline and about 50 Pascaline's were built.
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A pocket version of the Pascaline was invented by Samuel Morland which worked “without charging the memory, disturbing the mind, or exposing the operations to any uncertainty
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miniature automatons became popular as toys for the very rich. They were made to look and move like humans or small animals
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Joseph-Marie Jacquard invented a machine (essentially a loom) that could be programmed to create designs that could be printed onto cloth or tissue.
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John Brainerd created the Steam Man apparently used to pull wheeled carts and more.
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World war one started
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Westinghouse creates ELEKTRO a human-like robot that could walk, talk, and smoke. ELEKTRO was first unveiled at the 1939 world’s fair.
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The first “programmable” mechanism, a paint-sprayer, was designed by Willard Pollard and Harold Roselund for the DeVilbiss Company.
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Walter Brattain had an accident while trying to study how electrons acted on the surface of a semiconductor. This accident brought about the creation of the first transistor.
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Raymond Goertz designed the first tele-operated articulated arm for the Atomic Energy Commission. This is generally regarded as a major milestone in force feedback technology
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The first computer controlled walking machine was created by Mcgee and Frank at the University of South Carolina