Pamela and I went to see the movie Hugo. The theater didn’t have 3-D, and one critic said 3-D is essential for full enjoyment of the film, but we found it delightful anyway.
Before I saw the movie, a NY Times review worked its way into my post on the charm of looking out windows. Indeed, as little Hugo peers out of windows and clock faces in the Paris train station where he works, it’s as if he were watching a theatrical entertainment staged for him alone.
A major “character” in Hugo is an old automaton that the boy had worked to repair with his father before a fire left him an orphan. He desperately wants to finish the work. He fancies that if the automaton were to write something, it would deliver a message from his father.
Automatons were apparently quite popular in the early 20th century. They were ingenious robots that could perform feats like writing and drawing.
There is one that can be seen today at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Thought to have been constructed around 1800, it knows how to make four drawings and write three poems — two in French and one in English. “Henri Maillardet, a Swiss mechanician of the 18th century who worked in London producing clocks and other mechanisms” is the tinkerer behind it. Read more.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 
Hugo is one we all want to see, too.
NPR had a story about a fortune-telling automaton from the first decade of the twentieth century. She was equipped with two Edison wax-record cylinders, one for men and one for women. You put in your coin, and then, depending on your sex, she read out a fortune to you.
I love the beautiful handwriting of Henri Maillardet’s automaton.
It must take an exceptional level of patience to build something like that. I am reminded of the kids who compete in the FIRST Robotics competitions today. One must also need an exceptional level of belief that the machine will work eventually.