Robots

Fascinating exhibition at the Science Museum looking at the history and future of robots.

The show defined robots as mechanical humans and seeing that helps as at times I felt it was more about automatons rather than my idea of robots which have a degree of learned behaviour about them. I was amazed that the show started in the Medieval and Renaissance periods by looking at the church’s use of clockwork machines to explain the heavens and the human body. I loved a delightful mini-monk which could walk across the table.

The next section looked at the role of automation in the Industrial Revolution followed by a section on robots in the imagination. This was full of iconic references in popular culture including a replica of Maria from Metropolis, a robot boxing toy I remembered from my childhood and T-800 from Terminator Salvation.

A big central display focused on how robots have been built moving from early examples from the 1950s to up to date work. It discussed the move to mirror the human anatomy to learn how to make the robots move more naturally. I was amazed that the first robot to walk in a stable way wasn’t built until 1996. It made you realise that a cutting edge science this is.

The final room looked modern robots which can learn from and interact with people. I loved the fact these weren’t in glass boxes but just behind a waist high screen so that they were in our space. I liked Kodomoroid which I show in the picture, a newsreader for a museum. I found Telehold, a physical stand in for someone on the phone, a bit creepy and said a lot about our current culture. There were also industrial robots, one which played the trumpet and an actor robot. Thank heavens there wasn’t a librarian one but I think that’s already happened and it’s called Google!

Closes on 9 September 2017

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