Robots and Systems
home  >  Albuquerque 1984 9 October 2014

The First
International Personal Robot Congress & Exposition
Albuquerque Convention Center
Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
April 13-15, 1984
- be part of the beginning -

The show was organised by Joe Bosworth (RB5), Doug Bonham, Russ Eberhart, Tom Frisina, Nels Winkless, and three or four others.

Attendee
brochure
Exhibitor
brochure
RobotShops
Program
Technical
Sessions

  • A report on the event by Dr John Billingsley, Portsmouth Polytechnic, England

  • Zylatron by Michael G Otis

  • Richard Moyle's photographs RB Robot - RB5X
    Heathkit - Hero1
    Androbot - Topo
    Androbot - BoB
    Marvin
    CyberRobotics
    Fetal-1
    Henry
    ??2
    Polaroid
  • more photos off site http://www.megadroid.com/Events/iprc_84.htm
  • and http://www.theoldrobots.com/iprc.html, five pages.


    Richard Moyle's photographs
    RB Robot
    The RB Robot stand with RB5Xs.
    The one on the left, on its own plinth, has the arm module fitted.
    RB Robot
    The RB Robot stand with RB5Xs,
    Heathkit in the background.

    Later the RB5s were taken down from the tables and were let run free on the stand, avoiding people and things using their ultrasonics and saying "sorry" and "excuse me" when they did bump into something. It was amazing to see the robots and people mingling on the stand, it was just as if the RB5s were alive like small children and when one did find its way out of the stand, a RB robot representative would just go after it and bring it back just like one would a child.

    Heathkit
    Heathkit Hero-1,
    Heathkit
    A Hero-1
    with the RB Robot stand in the background.
    Heathkit
    Two Hero-1s
    Androbot
    Two Topos on the Androbot stand
    Androbot
    Topo
    Androbot
    Topo
    Androbot
    BOB (Brains On Board) with its lifter on the front.

    BOB was a prototype 2nd generation robot with a primative vision system and a lifting arm on the front, able in the right light to find and fetch a special table.

    Marvin
    Cyber Robotics
    A Cyber Robotics Arm
    Fetal-I an omnidirectional base
    designed by William H T La

    Fetal I is a TOPO at heart with a new wood exteriour and new wheels.

    Fetal-I with its designer behind
    Fetal-II by William H T La
    An omnidirectional base with a robot arm on top
    Fetal-I's designer
    H.E.N.R.Y. by Bruce C Taylor
    It appears to be based on the Unicorn design. A better photo is at http://www.theoldrobots.net/robots33.html

    Taylor said "H.E.N.R.Y.just wanders around trying to stay out of trouble" by using bumpers to detect obstacles. Controlled by a Sinclair ZX81 with 16K memory, H.E.N.R.Y. also possessed a 128-word spoken vocabulary and voice recognition capabilities

    'I have forgotten'
    Another Arm and a walking toy
    Polaroid

    I took my Sinclair microvision TV with me because it was supposed to work anywhere in the world and I wanted to try it out.

    We got talking to the Polaroid reps and it turned out Polaroid had made special Lithium batteries for the Sinclair TV and so I lent them my TV to have on their stand for the exhibition to show off their batteries. Actually they were a little unhappy with Sinclair because the sales of the TV and hence batteries were lower than expected.

    In return for the loan of the TV they gave me a Polaroid Ultrasonic designer set and a heap of the 6v Lithium batteries.

    David Buckley