Elektro

Elektro is the nickname of a robot built by Westinghouse in Mansfield, Ohio between 1937 and 1938. Seven feet tall, weighing 265 pounds, humanoid in appearance, it could walk by voice command, talk (using a 78-rpm record player), smoke cigarettes, blow up balloons, and move its head and arms. The body consisted of a steel gear, cam and motor skeleton covered by an aluminum skin. The photoelectric "eyes" could distinguish red and green light. It was on exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair. It 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 Palisades Park in Oceanside, California in the late fifties and early sixties. It also appeared as "Thinko", in a 1960 film, " [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054298/ Sex Kittens Go to College] ", which starred Mamie Van Doren and Tuesday Weld. In the 1960s, his head was given to a retiring Westinghouse engineer and his body was sold for scrap. Fact|date=November 2007

In 1992, the dance band Meat Beat Manifesto released the single "I Am Electro" which prominently featured snippets of Elektro's monologues, quoting lines such as "My brain is bigger than yours" and "If you use me well, I can be your slave."

Elektro survived the scrap pile and is being restored by Jack Weeks. Fact|date=November 2007 It is currently the property of the Mansfield Memorial Museum.

External links

* [http://www.maser.org/k8rt/ Photo and document gallery] from a former Westinghouse employee
* [http://davidszondy.com/future/robot/elektro1.htm Elektro commentary]
* [http://www.freetimes.com/stories/13/35/robot-dreams-the-strange-tale-of-a-mans-quest-to-rebuild-his-mechanical-childhood-friend Free Times article]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T35A3g_GvSg You-Tube Video footage of Elektro at the 1939 World's Fair]
* [http://www.archive.org/details/middleton_family_worlds_fair_1939 The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair (1939)] Shows entire Elektro demo starting at 34 minutes into movie.