Automaton

: automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions.

The term has long been commonly associated with automated puppets that resemble moving humans or animals, built to impress and/or to entertain people.

Animatronics are a modern type of automata with electronics, often used for the portrayal of characters or creatures in films and in theme park attractions.

The automata in the Hellenistic world were intended as tools, toys, religious spectacles, or prototypes for demonstrating basic scientific principles.

Numerous water-powered automata were built by Ktesibios, a Greek inventor and the first head of the Great Library of Alexandria; for example, he "used water to sound a whistle and make a model owl move.

[12] The clockwork is thought to have come originally from Rhodes, where there was apparently a tradition of mechanical engineering; the island was renowned for its automata; to quote Pindar's seventh Olympic Ode: However, the information gleaned from recent scans of the fragments indicate that it may have come from the colonies of Corinth in Sicily and implies a connection with Archimedes.

[13] In ancient China, a curious account of automata is found in the Lie Zi text, believed to have originated around 400 BCE and compiled around the fourth century CE.

Examining it closely, the king found all the internal organs complete—liver, gall, heart, lungs, spleen, kidneys, stomach and intestines; and over these again, muscles, bones and limbs with their joints, skin, teeth and hair, all of them artificial...The king tried the effect of taking away the heart, and found that the mouth could no longer speak; he took away the liver and the eyes could no longer see; he took away the kidneys and the legs lost their power of locomotion.

"[17]Similar automata in the throne room (singing birds, roaring and moving lions) were described by Luitprand's contemporary the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in his book De Ceremoniis (Perì tês Basileíou Tákseōs).

"[18] Also in the 8th century, the Muslim alchemist, Jābir ibn Hayyān (Geber), included recipes for constructing artificial snakes, scorpions, and humans that would be subject to their creator's control in his coded Book of Stones.

[19][page needed] The Abbasid caliph al-Muqtadir also had a silver and golden tree in his palace in Baghdad in 917, with birds on it flapping their wings and singing.

[21] Al-Jazari described complex programmable humanoid automata amongst other machines he designed and constructed in the Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices in 1206.

[25] His "peacock fountain" was another more sophisticated hand washing device featuring humanoid automata as servants who offer soap and towels.

"[26] Al-Jazari thus appears to have been the first inventor to display an interest in creating human-like machines for practical purposes such as manipulating the environment for human comfort.

[29] In 1066, the Chinese inventor Su Song built a water clock in the form of a tower which featured mechanical figurines which chimed the hours.

[30] Samarangana Sutradhara, a Sanskrit treatise by Bhoja (11th century), includes a chapter about the construction of mechanical contrivances (automata), including mechanical bees and birds, fountains shaped like humans and animals, and male and female dolls that refilled oil lamps, danced, played instruments, and re-enacted scenes from Hindu mythology.

[34][35] At the end of the thirteenth century, Robert II, Count of Artois, built a pleasure garden at his castle at Hesdin that incorporated several automata as entertainment in the walled park.

Giovanni Fontana, a Paduan engineer in 1420, developed Bellicorum instrumentorum liber[b] which includes a puppet of a camelid driven by a clothed primate twice the height of a human being and an automaton of Mary Magdalene.

Leonardo da Vinci sketched a complex mechanical knight, which he may have built and exhibited at a celebration hosted by Ludovico Sforza at the court of Milan around 1495.

The monk is driven by a key-wound spring and walks the path of a square, striking his chest with his right arm, while raising and lowering a small wooden cross and rosary in his left hand, turning and nodding his head, rolling his eyes, and mouthing silent obsequies.

It is believed that the monk was manufactured by Juanelo Turriano, mechanician to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.[51] The first description of a modern cuckoo clock was by the Augsburg nobleman Philipp Hainhofer in 1629.

[55] A new attitude towards automata is to be found in René Descartes when he suggested that the bodies of animals are nothing more than complex machines – the bones, muscles and organs could be replaced with cogs, pistons, and cams.

Athanasius Kircher produced many automata to create Jesuit shows, including a statue which spoke and listened via a speaking tube.

The world's first successfully-built biomechanical automaton is considered to be The Flute Player, which could play twelve songs, created by the French engineer Jacques de Vaucanson in 1737.

[57] In 1769, a chess-playing machine called the Turk, created by Wolfgang von Kempelen, made the rounds of the courts of Europe purporting to be an automaton.

Catherine the Great of Russia was gifted a very large and elaborate Peacock Clock created by James Cox in 1781 now on display in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.

Hidden inside the chair were levers, connecting rods and compressed air tubes, which made the automaton's lips and fingers move on the flute according to a program recorded on a cylinder similar to those used in player pianos.

Contemporary automata are represented by the works of Cabaret Mechanical Theatre in the United Kingdom, Thomas Kuntz,[66] Arthur Ganson, Joe Jones and Le Défenseur du Temps by French artist Jacques Monestier.

Since 1990 Dutch artist Theo Jansen has been building large automated PVC structures called strandbeest (beach animal) that can walk on wind power or compressed air.

Unlike other modern automata, AREE is an automaton instead of a robot for practical reasons—Venus's harsh conditions, particularly its surface temperature of 462 °C (864 °F), make operating electronics there for any significant time impossible.