Elektro is the nickname of a robot built by the Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Corporation in its Mansfield, Ohio facility between 1937 and 1938. Seven feet tall, weighing 265 pounds, humanoid in appearance, he could walk by voice command, speak about 700 words (using a 78-rpm record player), smoke cigarettes, blow up balloons, and move his head and arms. Elektro's body consisted of a steel gear, cam and motor skeleton covered by an aluminum skin. His photoelectric "eyes" could distinguish red and green light. He was on exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair and reappeared at that fair in 1940, with "Sparko", a robot dog that could bark, sit, and beg.
Elektro toured North America in 1950 in promotional appearances for Westinghouse, and was displayed at Pacific Ocean Park in Venice, California in the late fifties and early sixties. He also appeared as "Thinko", in a 1960 film, Sex Kittens Go to College, which starred Mamie Van Doren and Tuesday Weld. In the 1960s, his head was given to a retiring Westinghouse engineer and his body was sold for scrap.[citation needed]
In 1992, the dance band Meat Beat Manifesto produced the song "Original Control (Version 2)" which prominently featured snippets of Elektro's monologues, quoting lines such as "I am Elektro" and "My brain is bigger than yours".
Elektro survived the scrap pile and is being restored by Jack Weeks. It is currently the property of the Mansfield Memorial Museum.
External links
- Photo and document gallery from a former Westinghouse employee
- Elektro commentary
- Free Times article
- You-Tube Video footage of Elektro at the 1939 World's Fair
- The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair (1939) Shows entire Elektro demo starting at 34 minutes into movie.
See also
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