Ancient Robotics

[M. Porcius Cato]

From the New Scientist:

In about 60 AD, a Greek engineer called Hero constructed a three-wheeled cart that could carry a group of automata to the front of a stage where they would perform for an audience. Power came from a falling weight that pulled on string wrapped round the cart's drive axle, and Sharkey reckons this string-based control mechanism is exactly equivalent to a modern programming language. He describes it in this week's issue of New Scientist magazine.

Video from New Scientist.

[caldrail]

Hero was a clever chap but I wonder if his inventions are a bit exaggerated in our day. We're used to complex machines in our daily lives but lets not forget these are often the design of many individuals working on their associated part, and often with the assistance of machines to aid the design process. We're that much more sophisticated about these things, and perhaps we look at Hero's efforts with modern hindsight and see parallels that really aren't there. I've no doubt Hero was a capable engineer for his day, but the tales of ancient robotics are pushing it. A roman might describe an automaton but we might describe the same things as a statue with a moving head for instance.

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

I'm glad the guy in the video wasn't my father, did you hear what he did?........... He took his son's scooter and cut the wheels off!

 

What sort of father mutilates his kids toys in the name of science, that poor boy could be traumatised for life all because daddy wants to make an ancient robot out of little Billy's pride and joy!

 

I'm thinking about contacting the NSPCC!

[ASCLEPIADES]

From the New Scientist:

In about 60 AD, a Greek engineer called Hero constructed a three-wheeled cart that could carry a group of automata to the front of a stage where they would perform for an audience. Power came from a falling weight that pulled on string wrapped round the cart's drive axle, and Sharkey reckons this string-based control mechanism is exactly equivalent to a modern programming language. He describes it in this week's issue of New Scientist magazine.

from New Scientist.

[ASCLEPIADES]

From the New Scientist:

In about 60 AD, a Greek engineer called Hero constructed a three-wheeled cart that could carry a group of automata to the front of a stage where they would perform for an audience. Power came from a falling weight that pulled on string wrapped round the cart's drive axle, and Sharkey reckons this string-based control mechanism is exactly equivalent to a modern programming language. He describes it in this week's issue of New Scientist magazine.

from New Scientist.

Here is a description of an automata of Hero used in a theatre.

[caldrail]

So these autmata are on the same technical level as cuckoo clocks and clockworks. Clever devices, but hardly ancient robotics.

[DecimusCaesar]

Interestingly, many Hellenistic historians claim that Heron of Alexandria did not invent these machines, but that he had recorded the inventions of past scientists. Some even claim that by the first century AD, there was a decline in technology. Whether this is true or not is hard to tell.

[ASCLEPIADES]

So these autmata are on the same technical level as cuckoo clocks and clockworks. Clever devices, but hardly ancient robotics.

Clearly, that depends on the definition of robotics. The authors of this article uses it as a synonym of the Greek "automata" which is in fact the name of one of the books of Hero; it simply means that the devices work independently, without simultaneous human or animal traction. You are right, cuckoo clocks and clockworks are considered automata and they are included in many histories of robotics. It is true that these devices probably wouldn't have a place in a Congress of Robotics today, but neither the Aristotelian taxonomy in a Congress of Biology.

Edited July 9, 2007 by ASCLEPIADES