While Devol’s patent was pending, a team of six men set out to turn his idea into a reality. Condec eventually purchased Unimation in 1960 and bought Devol’s patent when it was finally issued the next year. (the parent company of Consolidated Controls), to finance the development of Devol’s invention. Engelberger then convinced Norman Schafler, CEO of Condec Corp. in an attempt to keep his former team from Manning, Maxwell, and Moore together, after MM&M liquidated the aerospace division that Engelberger had led. A year later, Engelberger founded Consolidated Controls Corp. Shortly after the cocktail party, the two men founded Unimation, the name a portmanteau of “universal” and “automation,” which Devol had coined when filing his patent. But that soon changed.Ī robot serves drinks to Unimation cofounders Joseph Engelberger and George Devol. When he met Devol, he was working as an engineer for Manning, Maxwell, and Moore, a company that specialized in safety valves, pressure gauges, and other industrial control equipment. He had earned a bachelor’s degree in physics in 1946 and a master’s in electrical engineering in 1949, both from Columbia University. Meanwhile, Engelberger was pursuing a more traditional corporate career. government through World War II and the Speedy Weeny, a vending machine that dispensed hot dogs cooked by microwaves. He quickly moved on to other inventions, including the Phantom Doorman, an automated door-opening system a proximity-controlled laundry press, the patent for which was withheld by the U.S. After graduating from high school in 1932, he had started United Cinephone, to improve sound quality on the new talking motion pictures. Devol was an inventor and entrepreneur who had founded several companies to commercialize his various inventions. How the first industrial robot got its startĭevol and Engelberger seemed an unlikely pair. By the end of the evening, a plan was in motion that would change the world of manufacturing. Engelberger was curious about how to apply flexible machines for factory automation. Two years earlier, Devol had filed a patent for a general-purpose manipulator for performing repetitive tasks, and he was looking for a financial backer. Then the conversation turned more serious. When they met at a cocktail party in 1956, George Devol and Joseph Engelberger instantly bonded over their love of science fiction, happily chatting about Isaac Asimov and his theories on robotics.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |