30 June 2013

Elektro


Elektro is the nickname of a robot built by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in its Mansfield, Ohio facility between 1937 and 1939.




Seven feet tall  and  weighing 265 pounds , humanoid in appearance, he could walk by voice command, speak about 700 words (using a 78-rpm record player), smoke cigarettes, blow up balloons, and move his head and arms. Elektro's body consisted of a steel gear, cam and motor skeleton covered by an aluminum skin. His photoelectric "eyes" could distinguish red and green light. He was on exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair and reappeared at that fair in 1940, with "Sparko", a robot dog that could bark, sit, and beg.





 Elektro toured North America in 1950 in promotional appearances for Westinghouse, and was displayed at Pacific Ocean Park in Venice, California in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He also appeared as "Thinko", in Sex Kittens Go to College (1960). In the 1960s, his head was given to a retiring Westinghouse engineer.
Elektro survived the scrap pile and is currently the property of the Mansfield Memorial Museum.

(I would take a road trip to that museum and get some color  3D shots of the monster, but their web site says they are closed and it hasn't been updated since 2010)



Here is a low res shot provided by the museum.
Sparko seems to have gone to t̶h̶e̶ ̶j̶u̶n̶k̶p̶i̶l̶e̶  Robot Doggie Heaven.


1939, at the Fair
similar, probably nowhere near as sophisticated






 

29 June 2013

Saturday Morning Comics~How Fire Came To The Indians

beautiful art by Tony Tallarico. from Classics Illustrated Junior #571 - How Fire Came to the Indians (April 1961)