- Victor Scheinman
Victor Scheinman is a pioneer in the field of robotics. He is a graduate of the now-defunct New Lincoln High School in New York. In the late 1950s, and while in high school, Scheinman engineered a speech-to-text machine as a science fair project. In 1972 (some sources say 1969), while at
MIT andStanford University , Scheinman invented theStanford arm , an all-electric, 6-axis articulated robot designed to permit anarm solution inclosed form . This allowed the robot to accurately follow arbitrary paths in space undercomputer control and widened the potential use of the robot to more sophisticated applications such as assembly and arc welding. In 1973, Scheinman started Vicarm Inc. to manufacture his robot arms. In 1977, Scheinman sold his design toUnimation , who further developed it, with support from General Motors, as theProgrammable Universal Machine for Assembly (PUMA). He served briefly as General Manager of Unimation's West Coast division before joiningAutomatix as a cofounder and vice-president in 1980. While at Automatix, Scheinman developed RobotWorld, a system of cooperating small modules suspended from a 2-D linear motor. The product line was later sold toYaskawa .On June 22, 2006 broadcast of the American game-show
Jeopardy! , Scheinman was the subject of the $1600 "answer" for the category "Robotics": "In the 1970s Victor Scheinman developed the PUMA, or programmable universal manipulation THIS" (question: "what is THIS?" - answer: "arm".).Today Scheinman continues to consult and is a visiting professor at
Stanford University in the department of mechanical engineering.His niece is jazz violinist
Jenny Scheinman .External links
* [http://www-db.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures/display/1-Robot.htm Stanford Arm history]
* [http://vicarm.com Vicarm]
* [http://www.motoman.com/products/worlds/robotworld.htm Yaskawa RobotWorld page]
* [http://www.j-archive.com/showgame.php?game_id=1058 Jeopardy! #5029]
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