Britain's first robot walks again

One of Britain's first humanoid robots has been resurrected after being found in a garage where it had been stored for the last 45 years.

Robot Built from Scrap Still Works after 45 Years in Storage

In 1950, Tony Sale was 19 years old and serving in the British Royal Air Force. He built a human-sized robot out of scrap metal from a crashed Wellington bomber. Sale named the robot George and got quite a bit of press attention at the time. George was used for several years and then put in storage for the next 45. Sale, now 79, recently decided to see if George would still work:

‘I dug him out of the garage where he had been standing for 45 years,’ he said.
‘I had a fair bit of confidence he would work again and luckily I was right.
‘I put some oil on the bearings and added a couple of new lithium batteries in his legs, switched him on and away he went. It was a lovely moment.’
Mr Sale has always been interested in mechanics and built his first ‘George’ using Meccano when he was just 12 years old. The instructions for making the robot were in the Meccano manual and it could walk at a steady pace by shuffling its feet.
In 1945 Mr Sale made a second George the robot and three years later at the age of 17 he improved it by making it bigger and controlling it by radio.

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