(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Museum Pieces: Elektro and Sparko [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-08-13 At the 1939 and 1940 World’s Fair in New York City, Westinghouse created a sensation with its display of two “robots”—a 7 foot tall “mechanical man” named Elektro and his dog Sparko. "Museum Pieces" is a diary series that explores the history behind some of the most interesting museum exhibits and historical places. Replicas of Elektro and Sparko, at the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh in 2015 The idea of mechanical beings has fascinated humans for centuries. In ancient Egypt and Greece, temples often had bronze statues that were cleverly geared and levered inside to make them appear to move their hands or nod their head to supplicants. In Renaissance Europe, most royal collections contained “automatons”, which were complex moving clockwork animals or people. The word “robot”, often used to refer to a mechanical automaton in the shape of a human, dates back to 1919, when a Czech writer named Karel Capek used the word in his stage play RUR. The “robota” were depicted as artificial laborers who eventually rebel against their human masters—a theme which has been prime scifi territory ever since. And so when the “World of Tomorrow” exhibits for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York were being planned, it was perhaps inevitable that somebody would feature a “robot”. Of course the technology for an actual autonomous mechanical robot did not exist yet (and still doesn't). But Westinghouse engineer Joseph Barnett thought he could make a pretty good fake. The key to the illusion was the automated switching system that had been developed for the company’s electrical equipment. Operating an electricity grid required a lot of switches at substations that had to be opened and closed as needed, and Westinghouse needed a way to perform these operations remotely, using the existing phone lines. The solution they came up with was the “Televox”, a device which could use a specific series of sound tones to trigger selected switches to do particular things. Later, this technology would become the basis for touch-tone telephones. But now, Westinghouse saw a way to produce what would be a spectacular promotional exhibit—a mechanical man, which they dubbed “Elektro”. Two years before the Fair, working at the Westinghouse lab in Mansfield OH, Barnett and his team began putting Elektro together. The “robot” was basically a complex series of pulse-activated switches and servo-motors, all hidden within a humanoid-appearing aluminum shell standing seven feet tall and weighing almost 275 pounds. When “Elektro the Moto-Man” appeared in performances at the Westinghouse Pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair, he was a sensation. The impressive-looking “robot” opened each performance with a short speech: “Ladies and Gentlemen, I’ll be very glad to tell my story. I am a smart fellow, as I have a very fine brain of 48 electrical relays.” He could walk across the floor, respond to verbal requests, count on his fingers, blow up a balloon, and even smoke a cigarette. Audiences were thrilled, and many people no doubt believed they were seeing an actual mechanical person. It was, however, all a trick. Elektro could not actually walk, but had hidden rollers in his feet that allowed him to glide along while appearing to move his legs back and forth (only his left leg was able to actually bend, and his right leg just got dragged along). All of his “speech” was stored on a series of eight 78rpm phonograph records contained inside his chest which switched on in sequence and held a total of 700 words, and his servo-motors could only produce a repertoire of 26 different motions. The “lungs” he used to smoke a cigarette were just a small air compressor (whose filter had to be changed after every show). During a performance, Elektro’s human partner would “speak” to him and give commands through a telephone handset. The words themselves did not matter—instead, the switches inside Elektro were each activated by a specific pattern of rhythm and spacing, so the tonal commands could be cleverly hidden inside the syllables and pauses of the performer’s speech. All of the actions that Elektro performed were hard-wired and pre-set, so while the verbal commands were used to start and stop each of the motions, the entire “performance” was predetermined and the human partner had to stick to a prepared script. But Elektro’s daily shows at the Westinghouse Pavilion proved to be one of the most popular attractions at the Fair and drew packed crowds. So, for the 1940 World’s Fair, which was also held in New York City, Westinghouse decided to up the ante. Barnett and his team now produced a companion for Elektro, in the form of “Sparko”, a metal dog that could sit, bark, wag its tail and beg. After the 1940 World’s Fair, Elektro and Sparko spent the next several years touring department stores in the United States, giving shows to promote Westinghouse refrigerators, and in 1951 they made a TV appearance in an episode of the show You Asked For It (a live show which featured performances and exhibitions which had been requested by viewers). In 1960 Elektro briefly became a movie star of sorts, being featured as “Thinko” in the B-movie Sex Kittens Go To College, starring Tuesday Weld (the director had apparently seen Elektro on display at a Santa Monica park). But within a few years, both robots had been disassembled, crated up, and stored away in the Westinghouse warehouse in Ohio, forgotten. Elektro eventually ended up in pieces in a Westinghouse engineer’s basement. Sparko’s subsequent fate is unknown. It wasn’t until 2003 when Scott Schaut, curator at the local Mansfield Memorial Museum, went looking for them and found Elektro stored away in a barn. The tiny museum obtained all the parts and painstakingly put them all back together. The original Elektro was placed on exhibit there. In 2008, the Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh produced its own full-sized replicas of Elektro and Sparko, which went on exhibit in November of that year. In 2023, Schaut died and the Mansfield Museum was permanently closed, and the Henry Ford Museum in Michigan now claimed ownership of Elektro, arguing that Schaut had promised the robot to them. The matter is now at the center of a legal dispute. 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