Introducing Microtron
In the early 1970s, a bright 12-year old named Tod Loofbourrow built a 70 pound motorized mobile robot which he dubbed “Microtron” (or “Mike” for short). His robot was controlled by the KIM-1 computer and both he and his early ‘bot were written-up in the April, 1977 issue of Interface Age magazine.
He continued to develop the robot, and at the age of 16, he was approached by Hayden Publishing to write a book about it. In 1978, How to Build a Computer Controlled Robot was published:
Tod moved on to other things, but many hobby roboticists in the late 70s through the 1980s built their own Microtron robots using his book. This website is about one of them.
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[...] Microtron in 2009, fresh out of storage. Upper outer frame and panels are missing.I decided that the first step in restoring functionality was to get the robot’s frame back together. Here are the original pieces, laid out in their proper order, ready to be bolted back together. Each piece is individually numbered (the number labels are on the inside of the pieces as is visible in the photo) – I merely followed the diagram from Tod’s original book: [...]
[...] of his development. Tod later added the eight-sided outer frames and impact sensors before writing his book about the robot. Sunday, October 4th, 2009 History, [...]