The Curse of the Maillardet Automaton
By Zachary | February 12, 2008
Purportedly, Maillardet’s Automaton, the robot that draws three pictures and writes four poems is cursed. The inventor, Henri Maillardet, is said to have met with murder or suicide. A man who restored the machine when it came to the institute in the 1920’s bought a ticket to Atlantic City and drowned himself in the ocean. This is according to Charles Penniman, a long-time volunteer at the Institute.
An Institute staff member vaguely recalls a television program a number of years ago on this very topic but information on it is far from forthcoming on the Web. Do you know anything about this famous machine and its less famous curse? Tell us what you know!
Topics: Instrumentation | 2 Comments »