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"Does it open a new horizon for my thinking? Does it lead me to think new kinds of thoughts, that I would not otherwise perhaps have thought at all? These qualities are what [make] science fiction ...unique."
- Frederik Pohl
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| Robotic Undersea Turtle | ||
| A sea-going robot that resembles a turtle. |
| It stirred among shadows, behind a squat cylinder topped with the usual black-and-mirror plates. Perhaps three feet long, six or eight inches high... It came out into plain view. Darkington glimpsed a slim body and six short legs of articulated dull metal. A latticework swiveled at the front end like a miniature radioradar beamcaster. Something glinted beadily beneath, twin lenses? Two thin tentacles held a metal silver off one of the great stationary structures. They fed it into an orifice, and sparks shot back upward-
 (Robot turtle from 'Epilogue' (1962) by Poul Anderson) "Holy Moses," Kuroki whispered. The thing stopped in its tracks. The front-end lattice swung toward the humans. Then the thing was off, unbelievably fast. In half a second there was nothing to see. Nobody moved for almost a minute. Finally Frederika clutched Darkington's arm with a little cry. The rigidness left him and he babbled of experimental robot turtles in the early days of cybernetic researchvery simple gadgets. A motor drove a wheeled platform, steered by a photoelectric unit that approached light sources by which the batteries might be recharged and, when this was done, became negatively phototropic and sought darkness. An elementary feedback circuit. But the turtles had shown astonishing tenacity, had gone over obstacles or even around... "That beast there was a good deal more complicated..." |
| Technovelgy from Epilogue,
by Poul Anderson. Published by Analog in 1962 Additional resources -
|
Compare to the Robofish (Mitsubishi Robot Turbot) from Slow Life (2002) by Michael Swanwick.
Thanks to Bruce P for pulling this item out of his memory.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Epilogue
More Ideas
and Technology by Poul Anderson
Tech news articles related to Epilogue
Tech news articles related to works by Poul Anderson
Robotic Undersea Turtle-related
news articles:
- Robot Turtle Madeline Flipper Science
- Boy Makes Biomimetic Turtle Robot
| Pole-Dancing Stripperbot Robot |
| VaMEx Biomimetic Mars Robot Inspired By Skink |
| DIY Robotic Content Farming |
| Vero Robotic Dog With Vacuum Cleaner Feet |
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'Why, a clockwork dancer, or, better still, one that would go by electricity and never run down...'
'Maybe the individual intelligence of each Cubic pools into a group intelligence...'
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
