Carnegie Mellon University Launches The Robotics Project

In a grainy video shot in the early 1980s on Carnegie Mellon University's campus, Ivan Sutherland rides on top of the Trojan Cockroach, a six-legged machine considered the first controlled by a computer and capable of carrying a person. Sutherland puts the machine through its paces, slowly walking forward, backward and sideways and turning 180 degrees in the video. At one point, he attempts to balance the massive machine on only two legs. "We believe that a mastery of balance will be important to future walking machines," Sutherland narrates over the footage. That Trojan Cockroach video, complete with Sutherland's prophetic comments on the importance of balance to the future of legged robots, is part of a new interactive, virtual exhibit from University Libraries and the School of Computer Science at CMU that explores the beginnings of and contributions to the field of robotics.