Robots are part of our everyday lives. The robots that were protagonists in our lives had both physical and mental role. What i mean by that is that in cartoons, anime, series, movies we have watched countless of robots that made our imagination reach extreme levels. If i mention some names i am sure you gonna know at least one or two. Let's try it. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger as Terminator and Robocop, The sentinels in both Matrix and X-men, Wall-E, C-3PO, R2-D2, Optimus Prime etc etc 

Sounds familiar?

Aside from that, robots are everywhere but sometimes we just don't notice them. For example, we have robots that explore the space and other planets, we have robots that assist in the creation of cars and in general in any automated progress. When we buy out of a vending machine a chocolate we have to know that is a robot too, but all of these robots have nothing to do with what comes to our mind first using that word right? 

To understand a bit better about robots and their history we need to travel back in ancient times and realize what's the connection with today. Also we gonna start over from the old times and come forth to today in order to see how much robots have evolved. As we are reaching our days , our talk will be limited to human like robots only, as that's the main point of the post. We are going to seek and find answers to some questions everybody had at some point like:

• Do Ancient Civilizations had Human like Robots and in general Robots?
• How they looked like?
• What for did they use it?
• What are some of the latest Attempts to Human like Robots?
• Is there an Evolution or we have remained static? 
• What lies in the Future and how far are we from the Sci-Fi Movies?

Ancient Greece

Once again Ancient Greece played it's role to it. In fact Greeks knew pretty well about the concept of Robots as in their religion they even had a god of craftsmanship, metallurgy etc etc named Hephaestus. According to Greek Mythology he had created from copper a giant robot named Talos that was something like a guard and law enforcer that could fly over Crete to patrol it.  

Archytas Flying Pigeon

According to reality now, the first Greek robot and by some the first ever robot came out by Archytas (428-347 BC) a strategist, mathematician, philosopher and astronomer. He invented the ''Flying Pigeon'' a small wooden shell with pigeon like form that in rear had an opening in which inside had the bladder of an animal. The opening was connected to a heated airtight boiler and as more and more steam was created at some point cause of the rise up of the exceeding steam the Pigeon could fly for about 200 meters. Note that Archytas considered to be the founder of mathematical mechanics.

Heron or Hero of Alexandria (10-70 AD) was another cool fellow who in my opinion were one of the pioneers of today's robotics. Except the fact that he knew math and geometry he studied a lot about engineering and made tons of robots or automated machines, you can say it however you want to.  I will present you 2 of them with the last one to be a Human like Robot!

Chirping Birds

This was an invention conceived by Philon of Byzantium but improved by Heron. Imagine a small ancient faucet with a continuing flow of water dropping and on the right a statue of an owl while on the left a statue of a couple birds on a tree. The purpose of the device was was the small birds to chirp until the owl turn and look at them, then again the same and same over and over. 

But how could that happen? Under the faucet a mechanism took place which of course it was covered so nobody could really understand the logic behind. Inside it had 2-3 different containers with the first one being the first place the water was dropping. In here there was a pipe with the primary purpose to lead the water to the container 2 when it reached a specific ''height''. At the same time another pipe that was more like a flute was hidden under the tree were the birds was. The air flow that changed with the water that was added made this chirping sounds possible. When the water was at the container 2 and started to rise up, it moved a heavy object they had placed there that was attached with the owl and made her diverting. Again when the water reached a certain height it was time for container 3 which basically was something like recycling of the water and the same old story started from 0.   

Human Like Servant 

This is my second favorite. It was like a regular Greek statue dressed with maid clothes (to hide once again how it worked) which had a jug of wine in it's right hand. The visitor or customer could place the cup in the next hand and then wine was poured automatically and then water too. 

Basically, underneath the head in the area of chest were 2 airtight containers one filled with wine and one with water. 2 tubes one for each were connected to the lip of the jug, so in other words the jug had nothing inside and there were 2 more connections started at the top of the containers that were connected with the hand the cup was placed. Those pipes had 2 holes at their ends with the hole in the pipe of wine to always comes first. 

Taking advantage of air flow and those alignments he did, when the cup was placed and because of it's pressure and the air flow inside, air entered in the container and wine flows from the tube. When the cup was half full with wine it was time for the water. Because once again of the weight of the half wine cup the passage of the air pipe of wine is prevented and stops. 

Sadly i can't provide you with any images due to copyrights but i have something better. A Greek teacher made a museum dedicated to all of this Greek achievement's in order to highlight that aspect of Greece too. Below i will have a link to go and check out the exhibits of the museum which you can read in English, German and French and are explained to the last detail. There are also images and animations of how they looked like and worked!

Click To Check the Exhibits of the Museum 

Ancient China

Like Ancient Greece, Ancient China played a big role in what we call now robots. From wooden pigeons and other animals to robots that could play music. There is an ancient Chinese book called Stories of Government and the People that contains records of the engineering of that time. It mentions King Lan Ling (550-577 AD) to have invented a robot that could dance as well as bow to the direction of the person holding a cup of wine.

Probably the most famous one is Cosmic Engine made by Su Sung in 1092 and was considered the greatest of all the Chinese clocks at that particular era. Su Sung who was a government minister ordered by his king Shen Tsung to make the best clock in the world and thus it began. The clock could pinpoint the time,day,month,year but also could count other gauging parameters. The clock was in ran for over 30 years but later on when the new rulers dismantled it. 

The clock was at least 10 m high and was powered by a special rotating water wheel that had either water or liquid mercury. The mercury assumption is because mercury have no issues during cold weather instead of water who freezes. That was at a lower level and probably nobody could see it. On the upper level he had created small rotating robots dressed with Chinese outfits that would announce the time along with the company of bells and gongs. Those could make this movements thanks to the wheel that had buckets around it which when filled with water or liquid mercury could trigger a mechanism to move. In the highest spot visible to everyone there was a heavy bronze sphere that used for observing the position of the stars and was synchronized with everything else.

Conclusion Of Part 1

As you can see there has been a huge chain of events and inventions in order to have the results we have now. Also, some of these ancient inventions may look like common toys today but for that time were the sign of a new era. Not everything in the past was similar to a human like robot but the same applies nowadays too. I wanted to show you some of the steps they made. For example they started out creating and inventing animal like robots like the pigeon and having that knowledge the next generations invented the human like ones. Inventions like these had many different goals and aims behind and i believe the same goals and aims remained till now:

• To create something that will make our lives easier
• To create something to entertain us
• To create something in order to become more powerful 
• To come closer and closer becoming Gods ( that's my favorite! )

In the Next Part we gonna explore some of Leonardo Da Vinci's robots as well as the famous Japanese Karakuri ones!

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sources
some of the sources are already in the post as links https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-technology/steam-powered-pigeon-archytas-flying-machine-antiquity-002179
http://www.historydisclosure.com/robots-and-automation-were-familiar-concepts-in-ancient-greece/
https://myweb.rollins.edu/jsiry/ChineseClock.html
https://www.realmofhistory.com/2016/06/18/6-automaton-conceptions-history/