Building Leonardo da Vinci's Self-Propelled Cart — The First Programmable Robot

Around 1478 Leonardo da Vinci designed a cart that drives itself: no ox, no push, no rider. Coiled springs store the power, wooden gears carry it to the wheels, an escapement doles it out evenly, and pegs set into a control wheel steer the cart along a route decided in advance. It is spring power, gear reduction, escapement timing and programmable control in one machine — an ancestor of both the automobile and the robot. In 2004 a museum in Florence built it to his drawings and it ran exactly as designed. This blueprint reconstructs that remarkable machine.