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Robotics

Elektro, the Oldest U.S. Robot 251

Posted by Zonk from the i-bring-my-best-wishes-for-everybody dept.
Roland Piquepaille writes "If you happen to be around Ohio this coming fall, don't miss an exhibit at the Mansfield Memorial Museum featuring the 7-foot-tall Elektro, the oldest robot in the U.S.. "Elektro is the only survivor of a group of eight robots created by Westinghouse in Mansfield between 1931 to 1940 for several hundred thousand dollars each," according to the article from the Plain Dealer, Cleveland. Back in 1939, Elektro was able to walk, talk, raise and lower his arms, turn his head and move his mouth as he spoke. It used a 78-rpm record player to simulate conversation and had a vocabulary of more than 700 words. It even appeared in a long-time forgotten movie, "Sex Kittens Go to College," also known as "The Beauty and the Robot." Primidi.com has an overview containing other details, references and pictures."
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Elektro, the Oldest U.S. Robot More

Elektro, the Oldest U.S. Robot

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  • Used in porn.

    Go figure.

  • Movie warning (Score:5, Funny)

    by nizo ( 81281 ) * on Thursday February 10, 2005 @01:37PM (#11632199) Homepage Journal
    At first glance it looks like the movie mentioned in the article (Sex Kittens Go to College) is a nerd's dream come true, containing both sex and robots! However, upon looking at the reviews at imdb, the first one I saw was:


    [Watching this movie was] Like watching Judge Judy do aerobics in a thong


    Ahh thanks so much for that wonderful imagery.

  • That's impressive (Score:3, Interesting)

    by chris09876 ( 643289 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @01:38PM (#11632214)
    I'm really impressed that they had something like that over 60 years ago. ...that's before computers! Robots now are inherently thought of as computerized I think... it's interesting to see that there really are mechanical versions of them. (I know there are still mechanical robots/machines, but they're almost always controlled by a computer - this one clearly wasn't).

    • Re:That's impressive (Score:4, Insightful)

      by brainstyle ( 752879 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @01:42PM (#11632275)
      I think The Tick [rose-hulman.edu] said it best: "Science in those days worked in broad strokes! They got right to the point! Nowadays it's always molecule, molecule, molecule... "

    • Re:That's impressive (Score:5, Interesting)

      by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @01:47PM (#11632366) Journal

      I suppose this is getting a bit nit-picky but your post about how people associate robots with computers instead of mechanics is a bit bizarre since the same thing could be said about computers themselves! Recall that Babbage and Huygens had working mechanical computers long before there was freely-available electricity. I could rewrite your above comment replacing "robots" with "computers" and it would be equally true of the first non-digitial computers:

      I'm really impressed that they had something like that over 60 years ago. ...that's before electricity! Computers now are inherently thought of as electronic I think... it's interesting to see that there really are mechanical versions of them. (I know there are still mechanical computers, but they're almost always controlled by electricity - this one clearly wasn't).

      GMD

      • Uber Geeks like Turning did all their computational theory using mechanical models of symbols, moving tapes etc. The move to electromechanical devices (relays) then to electronics (vacuum tubes) was just a progression of driven by the desire to realise faster computers. Relays could switch faster than mechanical latches and had the benefit of being easy to connect (wire instead of mechanical linkages). Vacuum tubes could switch many times faster than relays because they don't bounce and have mechanical iner
    • Fah! Leonardo DaVinci was designing these things over 500 years ago.

  • don't support roland! full text (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 10, 2005 @01:39PM (#11632233)
    If you happen to be around Ohio this coming fall, don't miss an exhibit at the Mansfield Memorial Museum featuring the 7-foot-tall Elektro, the oldest U.S. robot with its 65 years. "Elektro is the only survivor of a group of eight robots created by Westinghouse in Mansfield between 1931 to 1940 for several hundred thousand dollars each," according to this article from the Plain Dealer, Cleveland (free reg. is sometimes necessary). Back in 1939, Elektro was able to walk, talk, raise and lower his arms, turn his head and move his mouth as he spoke. It used a 78-rpm record player to simulate conversation and had a vocabulary of more than 700 words.Thousands of people enjoyed Elektro at the New York World's Fair in 1939. It even appeared in a long-time forgotten movie, "Sex Kittens Go to College," also known as "The Beauty and the Robot." Read more...

    Other information about this exhibit is featured on this page at the Mansfield & Richland County Convention & Visitors Bureau website.

    "Elektro was the first true robot ever built in the United States," said museum director, Scott Schaut. "Built in total secrecy by Westinghouse, Elektro was promoted as the ultimate appliance. In fact, it was thought that Elektro would one day be able to cook, do laundry and entertain the children."

    But let's return to the Plain Dealer article.

    [After being restored for $500 by Jack Weeks, whose father, John, helped create the robot in Mansfield for Westinghouse,] Elektro is back home -- repaired, polished and drawing crowds to the Mansfield Memorial Museum. Recently, he was taken off display for repairs, but he will return in September.

    "We had more than 4,000 people come to the museum to see Elektro since September," said Schaut. "It was wildly popular, and a good way to get people to visit the museum."

    Jack Weeks with the restored Elektro Here Jack Weeks, 70-year old, stands close to the 7-foot, 65 year-old Elektro (Credit: Mansfield Memorial Museum).

    Elektro, like the other robots built by Westinghouse seventy years ago, was pretty expensive, but also brought back money.

    Elektro is the only survivor of a group of eight robots created by Westinghouse in Mansfield between 1931 to 1940. The company predicted the robots -- built for an estimated cost of several hundred thousand dollars each -- would be the ultimate household appliances, handling daily drudge work such as washing dishes and cutting the grass.

    [But] "they made millions off him," Schaut said. "People came in from all over the world to see him at the New York World's Fair. In the late 1940s and through the 1950s, Elektro traveled around the country from appliance store to store. People flocked to see him. It was a hugely successful promotion."

    Elektro at the New York World's Fair in 1939 If you want to know more about Elektro, David H. Szondy has assembled photos and drawings from the past on this page. This one shows Elektro at the New York World's Fair in 1939 (Credit: David H. Szondy).

    Later, Elektro went to Hollywood.

    Elektro did what many Californians do -- he wound up in the movies. He played Thinko, a giant robot that handicapped horses, in the 1960 film "Sex Kittens Go to College (1960)," also known as "The Beauty and the Robot," with Mamie Van Doren and Tuesday Weld.

    Now that you're a fan of Elektro, you might want to buy an image. From this page, you can buy one from Corbis. But be sure to have your credit card with you. A small version (7.29 x 9.11 cm) costs $90 while a larger one (17.09 x 21.36 cm) goes for $200! Personally, I think these prices are outrageous.

    Sources: Michael Sangiacomo, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, February 9, 2005; and various websites

    • thief (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Doc Ruby ( 173196 )
      Why not support Roland? He spent some time finding the article and submitting it. For which he makes a little money, at no cost to you. What's your problem with that? You're so vehement about getting stuff "for free" that you can't stand someone else benefitting, though you're still getting it for free? That goes beyond cheapness - you're a thief, who wants to steal from someone, even when it doesn't benefit you in the least. You'll even do the extra work of posting the full text to steal without benefit. Y

      • As I have posted dozens of times before, Roland may be breaking various copyright rules, since he copies and pastes partial and, sometimes, whole articles from other authors onto his website. He does NOT add anything to the articles, he just pastes the entire text into his own site. Many sites specifically state in their policies that their articles may NOT be copied for commercial purposes without written permission.

        OTOH, Slashdot, does not copy entire articles, it collects links to the original site.

        • When I clickthru to Roland's site, I get his edited summary of another article elsewhere, linked to the sources. He editorializes his own take on its meaning and importance. It's standard journalism, and includes not just the traditional attribution, but a link to the original content. That's how journalism has evolved on the Net. How does this post - the entire text of the article, without actually linking to the page (with its ads that support it) - exceed Roland's traffic-generating promotion? It doesn't

          • Here is the user policy from www.clevleand.com:

            You may not in any way make commercial or other unauthorized use, by publication, re-transmission, distribution, performance, caching, or otherwise, of material obtained through the Service, except as permitted by the Copyright Act or other law or as expressly permitted in writintg by this Agreement, Service Provider or the Service.

            Now for the million dollar question: Does Roland have expressed written permission from Clevelend.com and the hundreds of other

            • He doesn't need it. Copyright law has a concept known as "fair use", which allows the copying of some content for various uses, and his use of it seems like fair use to me.
              • and his use of it seems like fair use to me.

                His use is a commercial use. He receives money from Blogads. Copying and providing proper attribution of an article for a college report is fair use. Commercial use on a blog is not.

                • That's not true at all. The Copyright act makes no mention of whether commercial use is a factor in fair use. In fact, slasdhot reproduces exact text from other copyrighted sources all the time, and it's quite legal (and they make money off it).

                  You might want to read up on what fair use is before you jump to conclusions. Start here [stanford.edu].

                  "In its most general sense, a fair use is any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and "transformative" purpose such as to comment upon, criticize or parody a

                  • Thanks for the link. And, while it i strue that I am not qualified to make a legal judgement, I do believe that the text of the Stanford link backs up (most) of what I have been saying. IMO, Roland's usage is not "fair".

            • From the Slashdot homepage:

              "Elektro is the only survivor of a group of eight robots created by Westinghouse in Mansfield between 1931 to 1940 for several hundred thousand dollars each"

              also (as credited) from the CPD. Does Slashdot have that permission? Does the CPD have a position on whether Slashdot, or Roland, have crossed the line past fair use into plagarism or copyright violation?

              • I think that this [slashdot.org] may answer your questions.

                • So there you go. I do think it's debatable whether Roland is fairly using the CPD content, which typically would be a use which comments on the CPD content itself, not just reusing the CPD content to comment on the museum story itself. But, as that post to which you just linked makes clear, the lines are legal judgements. At the very least, CPD's lawyer should be making that judgement. If the CPD, an organization reknowned for its pragmatic fairness, doesn't complain about damage, it hardly seems like there

                  • Baseless?

                    p.I disagree. Note that the Plain Dealer may not be aware that their material is being used in this manner. If that is the case, then their lack of complaint may be more because they aren't aware of it. And, since (I think) Roland's web server is located in Europe, how much effort would it take for the PD to enforce US Copyright?

  • This thread... (Score:4, Funny)

    by christopherfinke ( 608750 ) <chris@efinke.com> on Thursday February 10, 2005 @01:40PM (#11632245) Homepage Journal
    It even appeared in a long-time forgotten movie, "Sex Kittens Go to College."
    This thread is worthless without pics!

    Oops, wrong website...

  • pictures (Score:5, Informative)

    by omar_armas ( 633987 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @01:40PM (#11632252) Homepage
    Here's a picture:
    http://www.davidszondy.com/future/robot/elektro1.h tm [davidszondy.com]

    Omar
  • Why does sex and technology mix so well? Just think of the internet.

  • Bullshit! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 10, 2005 @01:41PM (#11632263)
    Look inside this thing...I bet you find a very old, very cramped, and very ornery midget surrounded by all sorts of levers, buttons, switches, and pedals. ^_^

  • Here we go again... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 10, 2005 @01:43PM (#11632294)
    Roland Piquepaille and Slashdot: Is there a connection?

    I think most of you are aware of the controversy surrounding regular Slashdot article submitter Roland Piquepaille. For those of you who don't know, please allow me to bring forth all the facts. Roland Piquepaille has an online journal (I refuse to use the word "blog") located at http://www.primidi.com/ . It is titled "Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends". It consists almost entirely of content, both text and pictures, taken from reputable news websites and online technical journals. He does give credit to the other websites, but it wasn't always so. Only after many complaints were raised by the Slashdot readership did he start giving credit where credit was due. However, this is not what the controversy is about.

    Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends serves online advertisements through a service called Blogads, located at www.blogads.com. Blogads is not your traditional online advertiser; rather than base payments on click-throughs, Blogads pays a flat fee based on the level of traffic your online journal generates. This way Blogads can guarantee that an advertisement on a particular online journal will reach a particular number of users. So advertisements on high traffic online journals are appropriately more expensive to buy, but the advertisement is guaranteed to be seen by a large amount of people. This, in turn, encourages people like Roland Piquepaille to try their best to increase traffic to their journals in order to increase the going rates for advertisements on their web pages. But advertisers do have some flexibility. Blogads serves two classes of advertisements. The premium ad space that is seen at the top of the web page by all viewers is reserved for "Special Advertisers"; it holds only one advertisement. The secondary ad space is located near the bottom half of the page, so that the user must scroll down the window to see it. This space can contain up to four advertisements and is reserved for regular advertisers, or just "Advertisers". Visit Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends (http://www.primidi.com/ ) to see it for yourself.

    Before we talk about money, let's talk about the service that Roland Piquepaille provides in his journal. He goes out and looks for interesting articles about new and emerging technologies. He provides a very brief overview of the articles, then copies a few choice paragraphs and the occasional picture from each article and puts them up on his web page. Finally, he adds a minimal amount of original content between the copied-and-pasted text in an effort to make the journal entry coherent and appear to add value to the original articles. Nothing more, nothing less.

    Now let's talk about money. Visit http://www.blogads.com/order_html?adstrip_category =tech&politics= to check the following facts for yourself. As of today, December XX 2004, the going rate for the premium advertisement space on Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends is $375 for one month. One of the four standard advertisements costs $150 for one month. So, the maximum advertising space brings in $375 x 1 + $150 x 4 = $975 for one month. Obviously not all $975 will go directly to Roland Piquepaille, as Blogads gets a portion of that as a service fee, but he will receive the majority of it. According to the FAQ, Blogads takes 20%. So Roland Piquepaille gets 80% of $975, a maximum of $780 each month. www.primidi.com is hosted by clara.net (look it up at http://www.networksolutions.com/en_US/whois/index. jhtml ). Browsing clara.net's hosting solutions, the most expensive hosting service is their Clarahost Advanced (http://www.uk.clara.net/clarahost/advanced.php ) priced at £69.99 GBP. This is roughly, at the time of this writing, $130 USD. Assuming Roland Piquepaille pays for the Clarahost Advanced hosting service, he is out $130 leaving him with a maximum net profit of $650 each month. Keeping your website registered with Network Solutions cost $34.99 per year, or about $3 per m
    • Hey, you've been mirrored.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Piquepaille [wikipedia.org]
    • Frankly, I can't fathom why you're even concerned with this. Lots and lots of sites out there base their sole existence (and advertising revenue) from rehashing others work. Slashdot, is in fact one of those sites. Why should Cmdr Taco make so much money of merely linking to other sites information, using your logic. Oh, sure, they provide a useful discussion forum on the topics, but so what? I'm certain Slashdot makes far more money than Roland does.

      Frankly, the fact that he actually DOES get a lot o
    • Look, friend, if you're going to rant about a site that offers no original content except verbatim pastes from an article in order to direct eyeballs to ad impressions, look no further than slashdot
      • Arguably, Slashdot "adds" the comments section, as well as a decent categorization system, and a searchable index of pretty much every bit of news out there that might be interesting to a geek (sometimes several times over :) ). And it doesn't have to have ads, you know. That's what FireFox and AdBlock are for.

  • not a solo project (Score:3, Informative)

    by I8TheWorm ( 645702 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @01:43PM (#11632303) Journal
    Elektro also had a dog named Sparky [donderevo.com], and they were introduced at the 1929 World's Fair [ucsb.edu]. Here's another link [davidszondy.com] for your viewing pleasure.

  • World War II (Score:2, Interesting)

    by k96822 ( 838564 ) *

    Yet another project abandoned because of WWII. It makes me wonder, if WWII hadn't happened, what would the world be like now? It seems we've stopped dreaming. Sure, we've made new technology because of WWII, but it is mostly technology to kill people.

    How would the family be today? Would we have to have the husband and wife work just to pay the mortgage? Because businesses learned that they can exploit women just as much as men to make money during WWII, it changed our family structure forever.

    I have to

    • Re:World War II (Score:2, Informative)

      by schnikies79 ( 788746 )
      Eh, actually we would be behind a couple decades without WWII. Research into physics and chemistry really accelerated during the war, perhaps enough that without it, even the transistor would be a somewhat more recent invention.
    • Are you for real?

      If it weren't for WWII, we wouldn't have had jet aircraft or rockets as soon. Spread Spectrum communications and RADAR may not exist or have been years behind where they are today..

      But, of course, if WWII hadn't happened, we'd all be living under the thumb of either a facist Japanese dictatorship or under the thumb of a genocidal facist German dictarship. Millions might not have died in war, but millions more would have been exterminated in the Camps. Millions more would have been enslave

    • Re:World War II (Score:3, Interesting)

      by dustinbarbour ( 721795 )
      Hahah.. What a laughable comment..

      Seriously.. RADAR, nuclear power, jet aircraft, super glue, alarm clocks, spread spectrum communications.. the list is long and illustrious.

      War is one of the only thigns that gives private companies a reason to truly innovate. its sad that killing another man and defending ourselves is our biggest impetus to advance, but such is the case.
      • My family has a wind-up, pendulum-type Seth Thomas alarm clock built about 1900.

        Radar was a fairly obvious development. Airplanes disrupt TV and radio reception to this day.

        Jet engines -- more generally, turbines -- are a logical development tracing back to Hero, more that 1900 years ago.

        Yes, WWII hurried along many developments, but your claims are too broad.

      • War is one of the only thigns that gives private companies a reason to truly innovate. its sad that killing another man and defending ourselves is our biggest impetus to advance, but such is the case.

        I fail to see why it's sad, rather than obvious, that survival is a big impetus to advance. That's one of the underlying premises of the theory of evolution, after all. That and sex are our primary reason for doing anything, and everything else happens afterwards.

        One day, perhaps, we'll be able to never have
    • I thought fuel injection and turbo charging was developed or majorly hurried because of WWII.

      Heliarc(TM) welding was invented here, known as Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW) a.k.a. Tungsten Inert Gas (TIG). It was needed to speed up construction of aluminum airplanes.

      The space programs of the US and USSR got a massive kick start once the rocket engineers left (or were taken from) Germany after the war.
    • Because businesses learned that they can exploit women just as much as men to make money during WWII, it changed our family structure forever.

      Funny, I've always blamed the destruction of the american family on the greed of the me-first boomer generation. The economy revolved around the fact that only one person in a family worked. Therefore, if an average guy was going to buy a home, it was designed to be affordable ona single income. People had a certain amount of money. Then boomers discovered that
      • "Now, two incomes is required to maintain the same standard of living that our grandparents had."

        My grandfather didn't get shoes until he was about 10. He also had to shoot his own meat (usually squirrel) and pick up the shell casings so he could repack the bullets. Neither grandparent had a car until they were well in their 20s and they didn't own a house until they were in their early 30s. Most families I see with two incomes are spending the greater portion of that 2nd income on luxuries that were no
  • Elektro was able to walk, talk, raise and lower his arms, turn his head and move his mouth as he spoke.

    ...wow, just look [lunarrepublic.com] how far technology has progressed since then!


  • Wow, isn't that something this robot was equipped with a bellows for smoking. Funny how times have changed. below is a link to a sectional drawing showing the inner workings of the robot.

    http://www.davidszondy.com/future/robot/elektro- in terior.jpg
  • "Because Robots are strong and their claws are made of metal.
    Robot Insurance: For when the metal ones come for you"
  • Doesn't this bot remind you a bit of the robot from The Day the Earth Stood Still?

    OT, How come there are no more World's Fairs? Disney's EPCOT just doesn't do it for me anymore. Can't we see some futuristic cars and segways and all-digital homes all together instead of visiting the "Innoventions" exhibit?

    • There are a couple of reasons why there aren't any more World's Fairs. . .

      1. Too many of them turned into financial busts.

      2. People have learned to fear science and technology.

    • Re:Klaatu? (Score:4, Informative)

      by ghoti ( 60903 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @02:26PM (#11632890) Homepage
      There certainly still are world fairs [expo2005.com]. And this year's in Japan will have lots of robots, too [expo2005.or.jp].

    • Re:Klaatu? (Score:3, Informative)

      by snorklewacker ( 836663 )
      > How come there are no more World's Fairs?

      The "World's Fair" name was stuck onto the International Exposition (or just "Expo" as they're usually called), which is held every five years or so, in order to celebrate internationalism, the precursor to today's globalism. The name has since fallen out of favor, as the whole lookie-lookie novelty flavor "it's a small world after all" faddish style of internationalism that was the hallmark of the World's Fairs has since faded. It was never an official name.
    • Klaatu was the spaceman played by the very human Michael Rennie.

      Gort was the robot.

      In any case Gort was much slimmer and sleeker than Elektro. He also had that mysterious visor instead of the silly anthropomorphic face.

  • 65 golden years of progress (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rd4tech ( 711615 ) * on Thursday February 10, 2005 @01:52PM (#11632441)
    1940 = "Robot able to walk, talk, raise and lower his arms, turn his head and move his mouth as he spoke."

    2005 = "Robot able to walk, talk, raise and lower his arms, turn his head and move his mouth as he spoke, AND, look cool, run and have a processor core that can calculate integrals if needed but unable to prove where 65 years of research have gone

  • Elektro's best function in two words (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @01:52PM (#11632448)
    Two words that best describe Elektro's most valuable function in the creation of all future robots.

    Prior Art.

    "Hel...lo. I...am...Elektro. I...am...prior...art...for...all...robots...to... come. Your...patent...is...invaild. Ha...ha...ha."

  • iron lungs (Score:3, Funny)

    by DirtyJ ( 576100 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @01:53PM (#11632462)
    Maybe he's the only survivor because they all smoked [davidszondy.com]!

  • Awesome-O (Score:5, Funny)

    by Natchswing ( 588534 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @01:53PM (#11632464)
    I am Awesome-O [comedycentral.com]. I generate movie scripts for the MPAA.

  • Oh... (Score:2)

    by Rxke ( 644923 )
    Can't help but feel a bit dissapointed.
    initially I thought it was the first *industrial* robot. Cool as this thing is, it is in fact only an expensive toy. It doesn't really robota, or work, heehee...
    And what about the mmuch older automata, that played chess etc... Different ballpark perhaps, not relating to RUR (Rostrum's Universal Robot)

    • Good point. I recall reading about a robotic duck used to entertain people at the court of the last of the French kings. Essentially a complex windup toy.

  • Bender! (Score:2, Funny)

    by splatterboy ( 815820 )
    They gave Elektro "bellows for smoking", no mention about "funnel for beer" though, then put him in soft-core porn...

    Bender would be so proud! His grandpa was a sexy smoking robot! (blueprint:http://davidszondy.com/future/robot/ele ktro-interior.jpg)

  • Mandatory Roland Piquepailleing (Score:3, Informative)

    by MostlyHarmless ( 75501 ) <[artdent] [at] [freeshell.org]> on Thursday February 10, 2005 @01:55PM (#11632496)
    I'm sure by the time I finish writing this there will be have a dozen comments about whether or not Roland Pickapeckofpickledpeppers is or is not a scummy plagiarist with a secret deal with the OSDN (Overlords of Slashdot Donations Network, that is), delivering vast quantities of cocaine in exchange for his stories automatically appearing on the slashdot front page.

    To save everyone else the trouble of repeating the same arguments over and over, why don't you just read the main crux of the complaint and an official response [slashdot.org]. Then kindly move along unless you have something new and dramatic to add, in which case you might be able to get in one or two posts before the OSDN thugs and/or hired assassins start knocking on your door ;-).

  • It's not even really a robot. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Trespass ( 225077 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @01:55PM (#11632502) Homepage
    It's an automaton, like the show at Chuck E. Cheese or Vauban's duck.
  • ...is to give it the ability to smoke: Smoking bot [davidszondy.com]
  • Elektro's dog Sparko has worms! Follow the link from Roland's site for the pictures and look at the Sparko page and you will see that I speak the truth! ;)
  • Once, his legs were removed and his torso was hauled around Mansfield in a wagon.

    I think that might have been in an episode of Li'l Rascals. Oh-Tay!
  • According to the Mansfield Memorial Museum website http://www.mansfieldtourism.com/CVB_Site/Pages/ele ctro.htm [mansfieldtourism.com]:

    The exhibit will be on display at the Museum from September 7 through November 20, 2004.

    The exhibit is over. You can go about your business. Move along.

  • Oldest Robot My Ass (Score:3, Funny)

    by spezz ( 150943 ) on Thursday February 10, 2005 @02:23PM (#11632848)
    Boilerplate [bigredhair.com] is older than that.
  • Titled "The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair" [sjsu.edu] produced by Westinghouse in 1939 as a promotion for their exhibit. I own a copy. It has a wonderful anticommunist sub-plot. Great fun.
  • Don't see how this could work. I mean a horse would have no chance of winning with that robot on its back.

    On the other hand, I guess it wouldn't have a problem concealing a battery from the stewards.

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