May 8, 2026 • 9 mins
Around the year 1800, Swiss clockmaker Henri Maillardet created a mechanical doll that moves like a person as it produces drawings and poems with a pen on paper -- it's programmed for seven in total, without having any electrical parts. Learn how it and other automata work in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://science.howstuffworks.com/maillardets-automaton.htm
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren
boglebam Here. In this our twenty first century, we've become
pretty much accustomed to the idea of robots being able
to move around, almost like people or other animals. It
doesn't always go smoothly. Robot fail videos are one of
(00:24):
my favorite categories, but we've seen robots do everything from
put together a car to run a foot race. However,
the idea of automata, meaning moving mechanical devices sometimes designed
to imitate life, actually dates back thousands of years. The
word automaton is derived from the ancient Greek word automatose,
(00:47):
which means self acting, and the Greeks built some of
the earliest machines that emulated living creatures, from mechanical dolphins
and eagles that entertained crowds at the Olympic Games to
a mechanical puppet theater. In Renaissance Europe, churchgoers marveled at
mechanized angels. In fourteen ninety five, Leonardo da Vinci designed
a robotic night that could move its limbs, though it's
(01:10):
not clear whether he ever actually built it. In the
early eighteen hundreds, a particularly marvelous human like machine reached
new heights of complexity and even mimicked human's artistic self expression.
Or we are talking about Maillard Day's automaton, a device
created around the year eighteen hundred by Swiss mechanical designer
(01:30):
on remailar Day, who worked in London building clocks and
other machines. The automaton, which resembles a human boy sitting
at a table with a pen in hand, is capable
of making four different detailed drawings and writing out three
different poems, two in French and one in English. This
automaton is currently housed by the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia,
(01:53):
one of the nation's foremost science and technology education centers,
which acquired the automaton from the estate of a wealthy
philadelph back in nineteen twenty eight and has spent decades
restoring and maintaining it Before the article This episode is
based on How Stuffworks. Spoke by email with Susannah Carrol, now,
the director of Collections and curator at the Franklin Institute.
(02:14):
She said the significance of the Malar Day automaton is
that it has one of the largest working memories of
any existing automaton from the same time period by memory.
She's not talking about computer chips. Instead. The memory of
Maillard Day's automaton is in the form of brass discs
called cams, which are turned by a clockwork motor powered
(02:37):
by springs. You wind up with a large key. Three
steel rods with sort of teeth on the end follow
the cam's irregular edges. These followers are connected to a
complex system of levers and rods that translate those movements
up the figure's body and down into its writing hand,
thus producing incredibly smooth side to side, front and back
(03:01):
and up and down movements. The figure also appears to
follow its works with its eyes and head. If you've
never seen it in action, go check out a video.
I mean, maybe not right now, but you know when
you get a chance. And Carol said. Though automated machines
and even human like machines were written about and probably
even created thousands of years ago, automata of this size
(03:24):
were not common at all. The Mallar Day automaton was
an engineering accomplishment and continues to be an impressive wonder
of machinery and skill. I would define it as an
example of the apex of a type of automaton with
limitations defined by the time period in which it was made.
Unlike the larger humanoid machines created in the Renaissance, which
(03:46):
were powered by water displacement or pulley systems, most of
the automata of the period in which malar Day worked
were just a few inches in size, with miniature clockwork
mechanisms designed to replicate animals such as birds and frogs.
Creating these small, intricate devices was a complex task, Carol explained.
(04:07):
Sometimes a single automaton would be created by workshops in
different countries. For example, the mechanism may be made in Switzerland,
the enameling or gilding may be done in France, and
then the automaton would be sold in England. Records are
rare for the automata that remain in existence, so it
can be a challenge to figure out who built them.
(04:29):
Maillard Day's automaton clear set up all by itself, though
the automaton puts its signature on the final drawing that's
programmed for, and that signature reads by the automaton of
malar Day. Mailar Day learned how to build human like
machines as an apprentice of Pierre jacquet Rose, an eighteenth
century Swiss clockmaker, watchmaker and master mechanic. Jacquey Rose's complex
(04:54):
and extravagantly decorated automata and time pieces caught the attention
of the royal courts of Yearurope and far away China,
and for a brief but awkward period, the Spanish Inquisition,
which suspected him of witchcraft until he demonstrated his piece's
inner workings. Jacquey Dros's shops in London and Geneva produced,
among whole flocks of tiny singing birds, a large scale automata,
(05:18):
including a nearly life scale child sitting at a desk
that writes real notes on paper with a feather quill.
Created sometime around seventeen seventy, That piece, called The Writer,
is currently down for repairs, but it and two other
jacquey DROs automata, the Draftsmen and the Musician, are on
display at the Art and History Museum in Nuschittel, Switzerland.
(05:40):
The two working pieces perform public demonstrations there on the
first Sunday of every month. Some historians consider these to
be some of the earliest working mechanical computers, albeit with
read only programs created decades before visionaries like Charles Babbage
and Ada Lovelace were even born. All of this is
to say that malar Day learned from the best. When
(06:03):
he struck out on his own and opened his own
workshop in London, he pushed the art and science of
building automata even further. Carol said it probably would have
taken three crafts people around two years to design and
construct an automaton like the one in our collection. Skills
in watch in clockmaking would be instrumental in constructing an automaton.
(06:24):
A metal spitting material, science, precision, creativity, patience all would
likely play a role. Mailar Day's automaton was designed primarily
to amaze and entertain audiences at exhibitions. He and other
watch and clockmakers would travel with their large automata to
create an experience that would make a powerful impression upon spectators,
(06:48):
most of whom had never seen sophisticated mechanical technology. Carol explained,
in the seventeen hundreds, people were still looking at the
town hall or church clock, which may have had automata
to see the time. Pocket watches were not yet widely
worn by the general public. A Maillard Day toured Europe
(07:08):
with the automaton until his death in eighteen thirty, reaching
as far east as Russia. After that, the machine's history
becomes sketchy. It's possible that P. T. Barnum acquired the
device and put it on display in his museums in
New York City. In Philadelphia, the device may have been
damaged in one of the fires that destroyed both museums
(07:29):
before it somehow came into the possession of the Brock
family in Philadelphia. Automata continued to be popular entertainment into
the nineteen hundreds, such as the mechanical fortune tellers at
amusement parks, but the fascination with them gradually faded. After all,
even more spectacular and world changing technologies emerged during the
(07:50):
nineteen hundreds, from airplanes to television to home computers. Carol said,
maybe there were so many advances in storing data like
the Malar day Automaton's seven programs to what we have
now that we just leapt from mechanical to our computerized robots. However,
(08:10):
automatad do live on as entertainment today. Disney leaned into
the concept in the nineteen sixties, revamping the technology to
include electrical and eventually electronic and computerized elements. These audio
Animatronics trademark are all over Disney theme parks, from the
Birds in the Enchanted Tiki Room to the Pirates in
(08:33):
Pirates of the Caribbean, two new figures in Star Wars Galaxies.
Edge Carol said, replicating life has always been an interesting endeavor.
It is an ultimate challenge to the machinist and forces
the viewer to question what it means to be human,
similar to humanoid robots today. Today's episode is based on
(08:57):
the article Mailar Day's Automaton is a marble of nineteenth
century robotics on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Patrick J. Kiger.
Brainstuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot
Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. But four more
podcasts from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff Lauren
boglebam Here. In this our twenty first century, we've become
pretty much accustomed to the idea of robots being able
to move around, almost like people or other animals. It
doesn't always go smoothly. Robot fail videos are one of
(00:24):
my favorite categories, but we've seen robots do everything from
put together a car to run a foot race. However,
the idea of automata, meaning moving mechanical devices sometimes designed
to imitate life, actually dates back thousands of years. The
word automaton is derived from the ancient Greek word automatose,
(00:47):
which means self acting, and the Greeks built some of
the earliest machines that emulated living creatures, from mechanical dolphins
and eagles that entertained crowds at the Olympic Games to
a mechanical puppet theater. In Renaissance Europe, churchgoers marveled at
mechanized angels. In fourteen ninety five, Leonardo da Vinci designed
a robotic night that could move its limbs, though it's
(01:10):
not clear whether he ever actually built it. In the
early eighteen hundreds, a particularly marvelous human like machine reached
new heights of complexity and even mimicked human's artistic self expression.
Or we are talking about Maillard Day's automaton, a device
created around the year eighteen hundred by Swiss mechanical designer
(01:30):
on remailar Day, who worked in London building clocks and
other machines. The automaton, which resembles a human boy sitting
at a table with a pen in hand, is capable
of making four different detailed drawings and writing out three
different poems, two in French and one in English. This
automaton is currently housed by the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia,
(01:53):
one of the nation's foremost science and technology education centers,
which acquired the automaton from the estate of a wealthy
philadelph back in nineteen twenty eight and has spent decades
restoring and maintaining it Before the article This episode is
based on How Stuffworks. Spoke by email with Susannah Carrol, now,
the director of Collections and curator at the Franklin Institute.
(02:14):
She said the significance of the Malar Day automaton is
that it has one of the largest working memories of
any existing automaton from the same time period by memory.
She's not talking about computer chips. Instead. The memory of
Maillard Day's automaton is in the form of brass discs
called cams, which are turned by a clockwork motor powered
(02:37):
by springs. You wind up with a large key. Three
steel rods with sort of teeth on the end follow
the cam's irregular edges. These followers are connected to a
complex system of levers and rods that translate those movements
up the figure's body and down into its writing hand,
thus producing incredibly smooth side to side, front and back
(03:01):
and up and down movements. The figure also appears to
follow its works with its eyes and head. If you've
never seen it in action, go check out a video.
I mean, maybe not right now, but you know when
you get a chance. And Carol said. Though automated machines
and even human like machines were written about and probably
even created thousands of years ago, automata of this size
(03:24):
were not common at all. The Mallar Day automaton was
an engineering accomplishment and continues to be an impressive wonder
of machinery and skill. I would define it as an
example of the apex of a type of automaton with
limitations defined by the time period in which it was made.
Unlike the larger humanoid machines created in the Renaissance, which
(03:46):
were powered by water displacement or pulley systems, most of
the automata of the period in which malar Day worked
were just a few inches in size, with miniature clockwork
mechanisms designed to replicate animals such as birds and frogs.
Creating these small, intricate devices was a complex task, Carol explained.
(04:07):
Sometimes a single automaton would be created by workshops in
different countries. For example, the mechanism may be made in Switzerland,
the enameling or gilding may be done in France, and
then the automaton would be sold in England. Records are
rare for the automata that remain in existence, so it
can be a challenge to figure out who built them.
(04:29):
Maillard Day's automaton clear set up all by itself, though
the automaton puts its signature on the final drawing that's
programmed for, and that signature reads by the automaton of
malar Day. Mailar Day learned how to build human like
machines as an apprentice of Pierre jacquet Rose, an eighteenth
century Swiss clockmaker, watchmaker and master mechanic. Jacquey Rose's complex
(04:54):
and extravagantly decorated automata and time pieces caught the attention
of the royal courts of Yearurope and far away China,
and for a brief but awkward period, the Spanish Inquisition,
which suspected him of witchcraft until he demonstrated his piece's
inner workings. Jacquey Dros's shops in London and Geneva produced,
among whole flocks of tiny singing birds, a large scale automata,
(05:18):
including a nearly life scale child sitting at a desk
that writes real notes on paper with a feather quill.
Created sometime around seventeen seventy, That piece, called The Writer,
is currently down for repairs, but it and two other
jacquey DROs automata, the Draftsmen and the Musician, are on
display at the Art and History Museum in Nuschittel, Switzerland.
(05:40):
The two working pieces perform public demonstrations there on the
first Sunday of every month. Some historians consider these to
be some of the earliest working mechanical computers, albeit with
read only programs created decades before visionaries like Charles Babbage
and Ada Lovelace were even born. All of this is
to say that malar Day learned from the best. When
(06:03):
he struck out on his own and opened his own
workshop in London, he pushed the art and science of
building automata even further. Carol said it probably would have
taken three crafts people around two years to design and
construct an automaton like the one in our collection. Skills
in watch in clockmaking would be instrumental in constructing an automaton.
(06:24):
A metal spitting material, science, precision, creativity, patience all would
likely play a role. Mailar Day's automaton was designed primarily
to amaze and entertain audiences at exhibitions. He and other
watch and clockmakers would travel with their large automata to
create an experience that would make a powerful impression upon spectators,
(06:48):
most of whom had never seen sophisticated mechanical technology. Carol explained,
in the seventeen hundreds, people were still looking at the
town hall or church clock, which may have had automata
to see the time. Pocket watches were not yet widely
worn by the general public. A Maillard Day toured Europe
(07:08):
with the automaton until his death in eighteen thirty, reaching
as far east as Russia. After that, the machine's history
becomes sketchy. It's possible that P. T. Barnum acquired the
device and put it on display in his museums in
New York City. In Philadelphia, the device may have been
damaged in one of the fires that destroyed both museums
(07:29):
before it somehow came into the possession of the Brock
family in Philadelphia. Automata continued to be popular entertainment into
the nineteen hundreds, such as the mechanical fortune tellers at
amusement parks, but the fascination with them gradually faded. After all,
even more spectacular and world changing technologies emerged during the
(07:50):
nineteen hundreds, from airplanes to television to home computers. Carol said,
maybe there were so many advances in storing data like
the Malar day Automaton's seven programs to what we have
now that we just leapt from mechanical to our computerized robots. However,
(08:10):
automatad do live on as entertainment today. Disney leaned into
the concept in the nineteen sixties, revamping the technology to
include electrical and eventually electronic and computerized elements. These audio
Animatronics trademark are all over Disney theme parks, from the
Birds in the Enchanted Tiki Room to the Pirates in
(08:33):
Pirates of the Caribbean, two new figures in Star Wars Galaxies.
Edge Carol said, replicating life has always been an interesting endeavor.
It is an ultimate challenge to the machinist and forces
the viewer to question what it means to be human,
similar to humanoid robots today. Today's episode is based on
(08:57):
the article Mailar Day's Automaton is a marble of nineteenth
century robotics on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Patrick J. Kiger.
Brainstuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot
Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. But four more
podcasts from my heart Radio. Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
BrainStuff News
Host
Lauren Vogelbaum
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