Job le Renard

Still working on my long post about the center left. However I’ve been really good about posting regularly for the past couple of weeks and I don’t want to blow my streak. So, I’m putting up an old photo again. This was taken at an exhibition on robots. It is “Renard le Job,” “Job the Fox,” created between 1950 and 1953 by Albert Ducrocq, a pioneer in the field of robotics. The machine is situated in a lineage of artificial animals which includes the Bristol Turtles and Norbert Wiener’s Moth/Bug. Mounted on wheels and containing sensors, it would move towards a light source, react to sound and avoid objects. Interestingly, it could record its path in a magnetic tape memory.Update: How embarassing. I’ve posted this photo before.