DaVinci the Roboticist
The ultimate genius.
I have long admired the genius that was DaVinci. He did a little bit of everything and he did it all so very, very well. An artist and an inventor and now, it seems, a bit of an entertainer, too.
This story on Wired examines another aspect of Leonardo’s genius: robots. More accurately, automata. Think of Disney’s animatronics in the Middle Ages. These drawings, which have been long interpreted as some kind of spring-powered “car”, were drawn and presumably built in roughly 1478. Their modern recreation, painstakingly recontructed from numerous drawings and sketchs, have produced a a cart that runs along a predetermined path. A path that can be changed based on gears and other settings within the device itself. In other words, a Middle Ages robot.
Now, there’s got to be some great ideas for fantasy worlds and stories in that! And, it’s a great article. Check it out.
