HERO Robot

Years ago (circa 1983), when I was still working in the Department of Computer Science, I assembled a robot for our laboratory. It was a Heathkit HERO robot, and it was capable of motion, motion detection, voice synthesis, distance detection, sound detection, and probably some other things I don't recall. The machine also had a head that could rotate. An arm was connected to the back of its head, and this arm could be positioned through pivoting, rotation and extension so that its gripper could be operated to grasp things. Faculty and students used it to study a variety of interesting issues in robotics, including programming and scene manipulation.

Here is what HERO looked like while I was in the process of assembling it. It is naked, and those are its guts you are looking at, but don't be squeamish!

And here is what I looked like, while I was assembling it. My grandmother used to say I looked like "one of those old guys in the Bible." You would think she would have liked that, given the reference and her religious leanings, but I think she thought I looked scruffy or something. I used to be able to grow hair--dark hair!!

Here is a top view of the finished HERO with its arm, programming pad, and teaching pendant displayed.

The cool thing, though, is to see how far robotics has progressed. Kathie's investment club owns some stock in a company called Intuitive Surgical that makes medical robotics. Here is a video of a doctor in Seattle using some of their technology to make and throw a paper airplane. It may not seem like much at first, but be sure to watch all the way to the end. You'll be surprised. You couldn't do this with HERO!