I have no idea if this worked, or if it was even real, but it sure does look cool. Recently Boston Dynamics has made a robot pack-mule that is somewhat similar.

Here is a later article in Mechanix Illustrated with little tanks that look somewhat similar.

HORSE OF STEEL RUNS ACROSS FIELDS

A MECHANICAL horse that trots and gallops on steel-pipe legs, under the impulse of a gasoline engine, is the recent product of an Italian inventor. With this horse, he declares, children may be trained to ride. The iron Dobbin is said to canter along a road or across a rough field with equal ease. Its design recalls the attempts of inventors, before the days of the automobile, to imitate nature and produce a mechanical steed capable of drawing a wagon.

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Magic With Magnets

by Prof. Victor Lewitus

NEARLY everyone has either seen or heard about magnets, but very few people realize just how indispensable magnets of one form or another have become.

The Chinese people appear to have been the first to make use of the natural magnetic minerals which they found in certain regions, in great abundance. They discovered that the “lodestone,” as it was called, was capable of attracting some things and not others.
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Mirror Teaches Batting

A huge mirror mounted on a wooden frame constitutes a new method whereby baseball “rookies” are taught proper batting form at the St. Louis Cardinals’ winter training quarters at Orlando, Florida. Standing before the mirror, the player swings his bat and quickly improves his reflected form.

LIGHT PRINTS TIME ON CLOUDS

Once engaged in the development of a death ray for possible military use, H. Grindell-Matthews, British inventor, has developed a new gun for projecting light rays. A motor carriage supports the cannon-like projector, which is designed to throw signs upon clouds miles away, and is an improved model of one he demonstrated in New York City not long ago. By inserting a special clock with a transparent face and opaque hands and figures in the projector, the correct time is also thrown on clouds.

Cows Wear Pants As Aid In War on Insects

Scientists now are dressing cows in pants. Strapped onto the hind quarters of a cow, as shown in the photograph at the right, the odd cattle trousers are used to collect specimens of ticks and other insects. These are sent to laboratories where extensive research is being made into the best methods for combating the unsanitary and annoying insect pests.

It’s interesting that for all of their excitement about ENIAC and future computers, people still only thought of computers as giant calculators. I guess that’s because they hadn’t been paired with a reliable storage mechanism yet. It’s hard to have an airline database without a place to store the fares and tickets…

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Lightning Strikes Mathematics

EQUATIONS THAT SPELL PROGRESS ARE SOLVED BY ELECTRONICS

By ALLEN ROSE

SOME day, travelers may step out of a plane in San Francisco 10 minutes, by local clocks, before they left New York. That day has been brought closer by the work of two brilliant young engineers at the Moore Electrical Engineering School, University of Pennsylvania. Dr. John W. Mauchly (38) and J. Presper Eckert, Jr. (26) have designed and built, with an assist from Army Ordnance, the world’s first all-electronic computer. The speed and scope of this digital wizard will revolutionize methods of modern industrial design. It is expected to put mathematics back into industry as an economical, rapid tool, saving months of figure work and accomplishing part of the presently impossible. The plane, rocket, or wing, in which a passenger may travel well over 1,000 miles per hour is now just a ghost on a blueprint. Engineers at Republic Aviation Corporation say it is hidden somewhere under a huge mass of highly complicated mathematical equations. The engineers believe that those equations must be completely analyzed before any promises can be made about super-sonic speeds. The Eniac (Electronic Numerical Integrater and Computer) has made complete mathematical analysis of that kind feasible for the first time.
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Novel Pencil Sharpener Runs by Electricity

Designed as an improvement on the familiar hand-cranked desk model, a new pencil sharpener is operated by electricity. As pictured in the photograph at the left, a pencil to be sharpened is placed in the opening at the top of the unit’s dustproof, dome-shaped housing. A small switch button is pressed, and within a few seconds the electrically powered mechanism forms a sharp writing point.

Motor Cycle Equipped for Jungle Trip

PLANNING a motor-cycle trip from London, England, to Capetown, South Africa, an English rider outfitted his machine with the odd framework of pipes shown at the left. The pipes hold extra gasoline for long desert and jungle stretches where filling stations are few and far between. A canvas sheet thrown over the pipes and hanging to the ground will form an improvised garage to protect the motor cycle at night.

Rear projection screen fits into briefcase

Any projector—movie, slide, filmstrip, or microfilm—can be used with this miniature fold-up screen. The “black” Plexiglass screen is eight inches square and can be comfortably viewed by six people. The Groupshow Mini’s folding hood keeps room lights from washing out the picture. Hudson Photo Industries, Irvington, N.Y. $25.

Airport Perches on City-Hall Roof

Three hundred feet wide and nearly a quarter of a mile long, an airplane landing field which can be revolved to point into the wind perches atop a thirty-one-story building designed as a city hall, in a unique model recently presented for the consideration of Detroit, Mich., municipal officials. Costing about $8,000,000, the proposed structure would be erected on a river-bank site easily reached by land and water transportation.

Bottling Machine Defies Bacteria

Faced with a growing demand for Parenamine, an amino-acid solution used for injections, engineers of Frederick Stearns & Co. designed this sterile filling machine to eliminate laborious hand work. The entire apparatus is enclosed by a Plexiglas hood and is subjected to a constant flood of bactericidal ultraviolet rays. The machine can fill 2,000 bottles an hour.

Iron Whale Swims Ocean Bottom Like Fish

Denizens in the ocean depths may soon find prowling among their haunts a huge iron monster swimming with fishlike motions and bearing a close resemblance to themselves. This strange monster is to be built from plans devised by Herr Schiff, a German engineer, who has already constructed a workable model for his astounding brainchild, which is shown in accompanying photos. The curious undersea craft is equipped with two fins and a tail which operate in the same manner as do these elements of a live fish. Intended chiefly for the exploration of the ocean bottom, the ship is said to be capable of maneuvering with all the flexibility of its fleshy prototype. Two electric eyes placed in the head for observation purposes make the resemblance to a sea serpent more complete. The craft was designed and constructed after an extensive study of the swimming motions of many types of fish, particularly the larger sharks and whales.