Victor Scheinman, who has died aged 73, designed the first electrically powered, computer-controlled industrial robot, proving that it was possible for machines to do complex manual work. Scheinman's invention, known as the Stanford arm, was a programmable robot with six rotational joints, allowing it to duplicate the shoulder, elbow and wrist movements of a human. Unlike previous machines, which could only perform one task repeatedly, the Stanford arm was capable of following a series of instructions. In 1974 an experimental arm built in accordance with Scheinman's design managed to assemble a car water pump without human help, using sensors to guide it. That same year Scheinman founded Vicarm Inc and began making his robot commercially. He soon fell in with the engineer and businessman Joseph Engelberger, who, with his colleague George Devol, had founded Unimation, the world's first robotics company.