For many robot aficionados, Automatons (“mechanical robots”) – from the Greek automatos, “moves on its own” – were the precursors to (what we now deem) Androids or Humanoids.
“An automaton … is a relatively self-operating machine, or a machine or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a predetermined sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions.” [Wikipedia]
“[T]he automaton has a unique character. An exterior force manipulates other artificial beings, but the automaton exhibits its own life/energy and, since its mechanism is hidden, it awakens awe. From antiquity, the automaton has had this double aspect of revealing the divine and providing a realistic scenic machine.” [World Encyclopedia of Puppetry Arts]
Or, as Silvio A. Bedini puts it so well:
“THE FIRST COMPLEX machines produced by man were automata, by means of which he attempted to simulate nature and domesticate natural forces. They constituted the first step in the realization of his dream to fly through the air like a bird, swim the sea like a fish, end to become ruler of all nature. From these attempts to imitate life by mechanical means, man subsequently utilized the principles involved to produce the complex mechanisms which have resulted in the technological advances of the Space Age.” [The Role of Automata in the History of Technology]
Here is a brief selective timeline of some of the earliest, so-called, automata:
Ancient Times
Apart from mythical automata, the ancient Greeks actually created mechanical tools, toys, and religious “prototypes”. There existed numerous complex mechanical devices, including water-powered automata, the world’s first “cuckoo clock”, siphons, a fire engine, a water organ, the aeolipile (known as “Hero’s engine”, a simple steam turbine), and a programmable cart – that might have inspired Leonardo da Vinci.
Unfortunately, the only surviving example of these wondrous devices from Hellenistic Greece, is the Antikythera mechanism (50–100 BC), the earliest known analog computer, that was designed to calculate the positions of astronomical objects.
Archytas, seen by many as the founder of mathematical mechanics, is reputed to have designed and built a self-propelled bird-shaped flying device (“The pigeon”), possibly suspended from a wire and propelled by steam.
Jewish legend has it that King Solomon designed a throne with mechanical animals which hailed him as king when he sat in it, and ancient Chinese writings speak of Yan Shi, an engineer, who presented the king with a very realistic life-size, “mechanical human” that …
“…walked with rapid strides, moving its head up and down, …touched its chin, and … began singing, … winked its eye and made advances to the ladies in attendance…”
Other Chinese writings about the 5th century describe artificial wooden birds that could fly.
Medieval Times
The Greeks continued making automata, especially for emperors, including singing birds, roaring and moving lions, and a mechanical, elevating, throne.
Later, the Arab world built the first wind-powered “statues that turned with the wind and, in the 8th century, the Abbasid palaces displayed various automata of various types, and the Muslim alchemist, Jābir ibn Hayyān provided instructions for making artificial snakes, scorpions, and “humans”. Some Abbasid caliphs had mechanical trees and metal birds that flapped their wings and sang automatically.
The Banū Mūsā brothers during the 9th century created a programmable automatic flute player and in 1206 Al-Jazari described a complex programmable humanoid automata and other machines (including a hand washing automaton, and “peacock fountain”) he designed and constructed.
During the 11th century a Chinese inventor constructed a water clock with mechanical figurines chiming the hours, and an Indian king (Bhoja) wrote about mechanical devices, “including mechanical bees and birds, fountains shaped like humans and animals, and male and female dolls that refilled oil lamps, danced, played instruments, and re-enacted scenes from Hindu mythology”.
A French 13th-century master mason, Villard de Honnecourt, drew an angel with a mechanism that would perpetually turn it to point at the sun, as well as a bird automaton with jointed wings. Another Frenchman, Robert II, built a pleasure garden at his Hesdin castle that included such automata as “monkey marionettes, a sundial supported by lions and ‘wild men’, mechanized birds, mechanized fountains and a bellows-operated organ”.
When palaces from the Chinese Yuan Dynasty were destroyed in the 14th century, many mechanical devices were found, including automata in the shape of tigers.
Renaissance and 18th Century
As with art, the Renaissance saw a revival of interest in automata. Hero’s works were translated and used to build hydraulic and pneumatic automata.
An Italian engineer, Giovanni Fontana, in 1420, wrote an illustrated book on war instruments that contained siege engines, hydraulic projects, and fantastic inventions such as a magic lantern and a rocket-propelled bird, fish, and rabbit. It also included a mechanical camel puppet, and a large primate, as well as an automaton of Mary Magdalene.
Public clocks with automated figures were installed all over Europe, and several clockwork automata were created in the 16th century.
Philip, Duke of Burgundy, in 1454 created a grand display of automata, and an Italian banquet in 1475 featured a lifelike automated camel.
Of course, Leonardo da Vinci is also known for designing or creating complex automata.
>>> sketched a complex mechanical knight, which he may have built and exhibited at a celebration hosted by Ludovico Sforza at the court of Milan around 1495. The design of Leonardo’s robot was not rediscovered until the 1950s. A functional replica was later built that could move its arms, twist its head, and sit up.[36]
>>>Da Vinci is frequently credited with constructing a mechanical lion, which he presented to King Francois I in Lyon in 1515. Although no record of the device’s original designs remain, a recreation of this piece is housed at the Château du Clos Lucé.
In The Smithsonian is a clockwork monk, dating from around 1560.
In Germany, by 1650, the workings of mechanical cuckoos were understood and cuckoo clocks became commonplace in the 18th-century.
Tea-serving karakuri, with mechanism, 19th century
In 1649, young Louis XIV, King of France, enjoyed a mechanical miniature coach and horses, complete with footmen, page and a lady within the coach. In 1688 General de Gennes created a peacock that walked and ate. Many of the French mechanical toys in the 17th century later became prototypes for the engines of the Industrial Revolution.
According to Silvio A. Bedini, “[t]he automata and waterworks of the Renaissance undoubtedly reached the highest peak of development in the gardens of the … kings of France.” At Saint-Germain-en-Laye there were a series of terraces with grottoes and fountains, embellished with mechanical mythological subjects created by Tommaso Francini, including an organ player, Bacchus drinking, Hercules, Neptune, Andromeda, Orpheus, and Perseus descending and killing with his sword a dragon that arose from the water. Francini and his brother also similarly enhanced the park at Fountainbleau, and subsequently, designed a series of mechanical waterworks for the palace of Versailles for King Louis XIV.
The German Jesuit scholar, Athanasius Kircher, created and designed several automata, including a statue which spoke and listened via a speaking tube, a “perpetual motion” machine, and a Katzenklavier (“cat piano”).
“The Digesting Duck” by De Vaucanson
Friedrich von Knauss was a German watchmaker and inventor who built simple clockwork mechanisms that could play musical instruments, write short phrases, or perform other small specialized tasks. Generally, he’s credited with making the first mechanical writers. From 1753 onwards, he created four such machines. [Source: NYU.edu]
In 1769 Wolfgang von Kempelen created a fake chess-playing automaton, the Turk (or “Mechanical Turk”), that was a hoax since it required a human chess player hiding inside to operate the device.
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The Jaquet-Droz writer (1774), in the Museum of Art and History in Neuchâtel, Switzerland
Modern Times
Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, a French watchmaker, magician and illusionist, used automata in his shows, and Italian inventor Innocenzo Manzetti made a a life-size flute-playing automaton.
The so-called “Golden Age of Automata” is considered by many to be from about 1860 to 1910, when mechanical clocks, toys and novelties became commonplace. Many European and American cities displayed coin-operated fortune tellers on their boardwalks, and thousands of clockwork automatons and mechanical singing birds were exported by small family-based manufacturers in Paris (e.g. Vichy, Roullet & Decamps, Lambert, Phalibois, Renou and Bontems).
Little Girl at the Piano by Leopold Lambert
Benjamin Franklin Miessner, an American engineer created or contributed to many inventions, including the “Electric Dog”, used to demonstrate how light affects the electrical properties of selenium.
By approximately 1916 Paul Durand, an engineer, had created a simple machine that was able to sign documents with a pen. For the 1937 International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life, held in Paris, he collaborated with Gaston Decamps, a famous automaton creator, to incorporate those movements into an automaton called “Professor Arcadius“. The Professor was a so-called soothsayer (“fortune-teller”), that could pick one of twenty phrases in his repertoire to suit the “character” of the visitor, and trace it with a pen.
“The role of automata in the progress of technology is … of considerable importance. Efforts to imitate life by mechanical means for whatever purpose, resulted in the development of mechanical principles and led to the production of complex mechanisms which have fulfilled technology’s original aims — the reduction or simplification of physical labor.” [Silvio A. Bedini – The Role of Automata in the History of Technology]
Despite automata having been superseded by smart robots, many contemporary artists, hobbyists, and creators are still continuing the mechanical device tradition, but with less emphasis on the technology, and more on the visual aesthetic, art, or even just for novelty or interesting utilitarian purposes. And they are still used for entertainment, as the many automatons on boardwalks and elsewhere all over the world attest. A thriving automata repair and restoration industry has also developed, as more and more collectors demand fully-functioning mechanical devices and curios.
Automata continue to be studied (e.g. “Sublime Dreams of Living Machines: The Automaton in the European Imagination” by Minsoo Kang), and have great educational value, as the wide recognition, and promotion in the classroom, of the importance of mechanical toys in the teaching of transversal and other skills illustrates. For example, the European CLOHE educational project promotes the use of moving mechanical toys as a tool to enhance primary students’ learning. [Kids, you can download some free automata-related and esoteric cut-outs and other fun projects here!]
In addition, automata still have a special niche place in extraordinary situations, as NASA’s AREE program demonstrates. The “Automaton Rover for Extreme Environments” is a project for a wind-powered mechanical rover that can operate and survive in the exceedingly inhospitable and harsh environment of Venus.
Interesting videos about Automata
The Museum of Automata in York, England, closed in 1996.
The story of automata
Automatons: The Original Robots
The Murtogh Guiness Automata and Mechanical Music Collection
Scotland’s House of Automata