Grey Walter's tortoises

Dr. Grey Walter was a neurologist, robotics pioneer, and a bit of a mad scientist. Living in Bristol, England in 1949, without the aid of modern day computer processors, he built reactive, autonomous robots that could wander about and avoid obstacles. Each robot had two simulated neurons, sufficient for them to display complex behavior. Significantly, Walter's tortoises represent the first real world demonstration of artificial life.

http://skitterbot.com

• Category

  Science & Technology

[Blacklemon67]

lol, a much gayer life XD

[16mmDJ]

Amazing! i saw this in make magazine, i am amazed by the ideas that this guy had.

[Ezra Zimmer]

Wouldn't the bots be attracted to each other because they are shiny metel

[Von Raphael B. Calawod]

Such a Scientific and Creative Mind

[Luke Stegmayer]

This old video is cool, but it fails to show many of the other behaviors of the tortoises. They found their way towards light, but when they got too close and the light was too bright they moved away. When equipped with lights, they "looked" at themselves in a mirror and "danced" with each other (Dr. Grey Walter thought it looked like a mating dance). Another version of the robot could actually "learn" behaviors, like Ivan Pavlov's dogs. I like to think that these robots had minds of their own.

[theonelinerkid]

its amazing but this wasnt even the first bem robot the first was made in 1912 by a french guy and it was called seleno a robot dog...

[Marco Antonio Becerra Pedraza]

Wow..., I've studied a lot of robotics, but I never believed I could see more than photos of Grey's tortoises... MANY THANKS FOR SHARING!!!

[Keith Ferrer]

ahhh 1940's, a time which gay meant happy!!!

[Keith Ferrer]

i'm gonna replicate it's function in a body of an orangutan robot!!!! ‎{:(|}

[Pilotgeek]

Funny you should say that... My version is a robot that looks like his and I improved upon it using BEAM principles =)

[whatnottobe]

amazing, and back then he had no microcontrollers, and just vacuum tubes. i saw this years ago in a book called "Robot"