As I continue on this train of trying to figure out how to build a low tech human powered version of the Elephant Robotics exoskeleton, I made an important discovery about historical robot types. My working definition of “robot” is of course somewhat broad, and some might argue that what I found is not really itself robotic… but I don’t care about that.
The more polite modern name for my discovery is a remote manipulator, and the older less politically correct name for it is a master-slave manipulator. They are also called waldos after a Heinlein short story. From the Wikipedia, as to origins around hazardous material handling:
In 1945, the company Central Research Laboratories was given the contract to develop a remote manipulator for the Argonne National Laboratory. The intent was to replace devices which manipulated highly radioactive materials from above a sealed chamber or hot cell, with a mechanism which operated through the side wall of the chamber, allowing a researcher to stand normally while working.
The result was the Master-Slave Manipulator Mk. 8, or MSM-8, which became the iconic remote manipulator seen in newsreels and movies, such as The Andromeda Strain or THX 1138.
For reference, here is the THX 1138 scene, though I barely remember that movie:
Note that a remote manipulator is distinct from a glovebox, like we see Homer Simpson using. In a glovebox, you stick your arms in, and they are shielded, but you’re using your own actual hands to manipulate objects. In remote manipulators – waldos – you are not. The action is at a distance, which is part of what makes this an intriguing thing to try to DIY.
I found a number of other videos on this topic of remote or telemanipulator systems, as they are also called. Or “Slave Hands” as they are called in the 1960 video:
Curiously, many of the promo materials for this technology often include the robotic hands lighting a cigarette for a woman, or serving her tea. In the one above, she’s even made to drink from the tea cup, which is a level of trust I would probably not have here were I them. The whole trend of that kind of imagery seems like a weird scientist sublimated puppetmaster/beauty & the beast erotic fantasy undercurrent somehow that I haven’t quite delved into, but definitely appears to be a “thing.” (It’s also on display here in another form in the 1948 GE Master-Slave Manipulator on Cybernetic Zoo – which has tons of related material, by the way).
A similar video from 1956:
1972, different form factor, but same basic idea:
Here’s a more modern demo of this type of technology from 6 years ago:
This heavy duty remote manipulator for large heavy objects is also amazing:
Okay, so the above is all well and good for industrial scale work, but I was hard pressed to find too many DIY examples of remote manipulators, with something that I might try to clone for home use. The below video demonstrates the closest analogue I’ve found to what I might try and build for the purposes of painting with it.
You can see the finished version of that My-Nuke coin operated nuclear reactor game machine by Tim Hunkins here.
For my purposes, the iteration he has around this form seems most relevant, labelled as Mark 2, starting around 0:32 in the video, here’s a still:

Just eyeballing it, that doesn’t look all that complicated… just some bar linkages to transmit forward/back motion. Unclear how the rest works exactly for the side to side motion – he kinda swings/rotates the arm? I can’t tell from the screen capture exactly how the grabber works, but now that I understand cable controls (kinda), that shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out. Anyway, a number of questions left here, but that’s the best simple DIY-style example I could find, and that gives me plenty of fuel for my own prototypes in this direction.
Tim B.
its also becoming all too clear i will have to try to build my own claw machine!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claw_machine