The Senster - Robotic Sculpture from the late 1960's

Today and Tomorrow has some photos and a video of a cool robotic sculpture from the late 1960s, designed by Edward Ihnatowicz. Senster would be right at home at Maker Faire!

The Senster was a robotic sculpture developed by Edward Ihnatowicz in the late 60’s. It was commisioned by Philips and part of their permanent showplace, the Evoluon, in Eindhoven between 1970 and 1974. It was the first robotic sculpture to be controlled by a computer and could react to the behaviour of the visitors with its sound and movement sensors. The computer used to control The Senster was a Philips P9201 and had only 8K of core memory. Now, almost 40 years later, every interaction student could make something like this and fit the logic in a small box. But this is still an amazing project.

The Senster (Via: Mt. Holly Mayor's Office,Via: Boingboing, Via: Youtube)



Edward Ihnatowicz was a Cybernetic Sculptor active in the UK in the late 1960's and early 1970's. His ground-breaking sculptures explored the interaction between his robotic works and the audience, and reached their height with The Senster, a large (15 feet long), hydraulic robot commissioned by the electronics giant, Philips, in Eindhoven in 1970. The sculpture used sound and movement sensors to react to the behaviour of the visitors. It was one of the first computer controlled interactive robotic works of art.