June 8, 2007

Robot Checker Player Is Undefeated (Jun, 1938)

Filed under: Robots — @ 4:25 am
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1938
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Does anybody know how this worked? My guess is that there is a guy in a robot suit. I have serious doubts that in 1938 they could build a robot articulate enough to manipulate the pieces even if it was fully remote controlled.

Robot Checker Player Is Undefeated

OWNED by Frank Frain, of New York, N. Y., a mechanically created robot is said to have played in more than 25,000 checker matches without being defeated. Sponsored by a well know radio manufacturer, the “Magic Brain Checker Player,” as the robot is known, is making a tour of the country. Standing six feet tall and weighing 500 pounds, the robot disdainfully sweeps the checkerboard clear of checkers if its opponent attempts to cheat.

6 Comments »

I don’t know how he worked, but I think I saw him on Star Trek once, in “The Corbomite Maneuver”

Comment by Blurgle — June 8, 2007 @ 6:56 am
Cameras on bike wheels, death ray, robo-checker player and thinking in glass…

Cameras spin on bicycle wheel to film lightning streak, Popular Mechanics - 1936 - Link. Inventor hides secret of “Death Ray” - “Pigeons on the wing instantly killed by death rays from a machine four miles away—that is the……

Trackback by MAKE: Blog — June 8, 2007 @ 8:05 am
Sounds to me like the mechanical turk. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk

Comment by dallas — June 8, 2007 @ 9:06 am
Reminds me of The Turk:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk

Comment by Keys — June 8, 2007 @ 11:27 am
It is cited on Time’s Jan 25th 1937 issue:

http://www.time.com/time/magaz.....-1,00.html

However, the name of the inventor is written as “Frank Train” instead of “Frank Frain”.

Comment by docca — June 9, 2007 @ 8:01 am
And by the way, the “well-known radio manufacturer” is RCA

Comment by docca — June 9, 2007 @ 8:02 am