Ep 314: Ancient robots

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:43 — 13.8MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Email | RSS | More

Ancient robots

Starting more than 2000 years ago, people have been creating machines that resemble animals and humans. Powered by water, compressed air, springs or falling weights, these automatons thrilled and amazed spectators.

Here’s a reference for Monday’s segment.

More than blindsight: Case report of a child with extraordinary visual capacity following perinatal bilateral occipital lobe injury

Here’s an article on the history of robots, and their fictional depictions.

Ancient dreams of intelligent machines: 3,000 years of robots

Here’s something about automatons as ancestors of today’s robots.

Automatons: the Ancestors of the Current Robots

Here’s a video on a replica of Hero’s programmable cart.

New Scientist recreates a robot made by the ancient Greeks

Here’s an article about the automatons created by Heron.

Automata Invented by Heron of Alexandria

And here’s an article about Leonardo da Vinci’s self-propelled cart.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Self-Propelled Cart