This article lists some very interesting first attempts to make “automatons” ancestors of robots. Far before informatics existed, our ancestors were using disks, gears, etc to make those extremely cute “automatons”moving with amazing grace on very few movements. It is amazing to think that humans have been fascinated by imitating nature with no other purpose that to better understand what is hidden behind the body.
Nowadays, you can still buy an automaton bird made with finely cut pieces where the beauty is the mechanism itself and the almost perfect imitation of the natural grace of the epitome of grace: the bird.
