Probably the most famous mechanical chess player is the chess playing Turk by Wolfgang von Kempelen, unveiled in 1769 (see ...

The art of building purely mechanical automatons has dramatically declined with the arrival of electronics over the past century, but there are still a few craftsmen who keep the art form alive.

THE idea of a ‘mechanical man’ has receded into the background since the advent of the mechanical age. When practically all our necessities are pro- vided by automatic or semi-automatic machines, ...

For one Swiss artisan, creating a sapphire-covered, tuneful automaton for the French jewelry house Van Cleef & Arpels was a yearslong process. After being bejeweled at the Van Cleef & Arpels atelier ...