I recently found out that the first robot was not in fact invented by the Japanese as I presumed, but by Leonardo da Vinci in 1515! Here is clip of a modern day replica of the robot. I find it fascinating to think that robotics dates back this far in fact da Vinci sketched plans for a humanoid robot as early as 1495.
Da Vinci’s mechanical lion was presented as the star gift in a pageant in honour of the new king of France in 1515. He also designed a mechanical knight, able to bend its legs, move its arms and hands, turn its head and open its mouth. It also had ‘talking’ capabilities created by using an internal automatic drum roll and is often claimed to be the first ‘programmable’ computer.