309:, which started operations in January 1980, was based in Massachusetts, but Scheinman ran its west coast office, where he developed RobotWorld, an automation system based on the concept that robots should operate in their own workspace, where there would be no potential conflicts with humans. It consisted of cooperating small modules suspended from a 2-D linear motor that formed the roof of the workspace. The West Coast office also supported other Automatix product development by designing components such as robot wrists. In the early 1990s, Automatix decided to stop selling robots because the application engineering required for each robot installation could exceed the cost of the robot itself by a factor of three or four and wasn't profitable. The RobotWorld product line was sold to
20:
67:
55:
44:
32:
226:, completing the design back at Stanford. Like the Stanford arm, the new arm featured a wrist with all axes intersecting, allowing a closed-form arm solution, but now all the axes were revolute, unlike the Stanford arm which had a prismatic joint. The arm had a shell structure made of sheet metal, instead of beams, that contained all the wiring. It also used specially designed gear trains, in part to minimize
277:
but was told it was a toy and could not be in the show, so he set it up on the front steps with an extension cord for power, attracting many researchers who understood its programmability advantage. Engelberger then invited him to bring the robot into his
Unimation booth at the show. Scheinman was then approached by
237:. Vicarm got orders for copies of the Stanford arm and MIT arm from various research organizations, including universities, General Motors, the National Bureau of Standards, AT&T, and the Naval Research Laboratory. The company soon offered a controller for the robots, using a Digital Equipment Corporation
276:
The Vicarm and its controller were small enough to be portable and
Scheinman brought one to Unimation and set it up on Engelberger's desk, demonstrating the true path control that Unimation's robots could not achieve. He also brought an arm to an early robot trade show at the University of Illinois,
208:
After completing his engineer's degree, Scheinman went to work for RacChem, designing automatic machines that would use RacChem's shrink plastic products. After about a year, Stanford asked him to come back as an employee of the AI lab and build the robot he had designed. He completed the first arm,
165:) which he built with Larry Leifer. It consisted of seven stacked plates, with each plate connected to the next by four small pneumatic actuators. Each actuator of which could be inflated or deflated by setting or resetting a bit in a computer word. That arm also proved difficult to control.
209:
the Gold arm, and was asked to build a second, the Blue arm, to allow experiments in arm coordination with vision. Other organizations wanted the arm, including SRI and Boston
University, so Scheinman built kits for them that could be completed by a commercial machine shop.
204:
control and widened the potential use of the robot to more sophisticated applications such as assembly and arc welding. The robot also had brakes on each axis, allowing it to be controlled with a time-shared computer. The design became his engineer's degree thesis.
273:. These early robots were hydraulic and programmed by teaching the robot a series of individual points that the robot would repeat each cycle. Some path control could be achieved by defining many intermediated points, but true path following was not possible.
281:(GM) who wanted a bigger version of his arm for a robotic assembly concept they were developing, but were concerned about his small company's ability to supply them, encouraging Scheinman to find a larger partner. In 1977, Scheinman sold his design to
157:, which they had interfaced to a computer. (The arm was originally designed to be controlled with buttons pressed by a user's tongue.) Scheinman was assigned to maintaining the arm but it proved hard to use, with poor accuracy and
390:, Scheinman was the subject of the $ 1600 "answer" for the category "Robotics": "In the 1970s Victor Scheinman developed the PUMA, or programmable universal manipulation THIS" (question: "what is THIS?" — answer: "arm".).
221:
to design a more compact arm. Minsky had funding from DARPA for a new robot and had visions of using it for remotely supervised surgery. Scheinman spent the summer at the MIT AI lab, designing a new arm that became the
129:'s graduate program, initially in Aeronautics and Astronautics, switching later to Mechanical Engineering, while still taking courses in A&E. He completed his Master's degree in one year and stayed on to work on an
313:, which offered them for biological lab automation and small part assembly. Scheinman worked for Yaskawa as a consultant for several years, and seven to eight hundred RobotWorld-based systems were sold.
125:
After graduation, on the advice and recommendation of his advisor, he got a job at Boeing, where he worked on a lunar gravity simulator. He left to travel the world for a while, and then enrolled at
379:
On April 19, 2002, General Motors' Controls, Robotics, and
Welding (CRW) organization donated the original prototype Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly (PUMA) robot to the
118:
as an undergraduate, starting at age 15, and completed a degree in
Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1963. He was president of the Model Airplane Club and had a summer job at
172:
computer used to control it, which normally was time-shared, and the arm proved too powerful, with its motions shaking the computer room and requiring special isolation.
176:, in his 1968 PhD thesis lists its purpose as "smashing things." Pieper's thesis also recommended specific configurations of robot linkages that would allow easier
505:
58:
Scheinman setting up his RobotWorld system in the
Automatix booth at the Robots '86 show in Detroit in June 1986. The underside of the top is a two-dimensional
62:
grid. Small manipulators and camera sensor modules can move freely on the grid to perform assembly operations and other manipulations in the space underneath.
102:
in New York where, in the late 1950s, he designed and constructed a voice-controlled typewriter as a science fair project. This endeavor gave him entry into
200:. The three wrist axes intersect at a point, as prescribed by Pieper’s thesis. This allowed the robot to accurately follow arbitrary paths in space under
715:
245:
microprocessors controlling the servos for each joint, including the end effector. They also developed a language, VAL, for controlling the robot.
269:
and several of its customers, observing robot applications, including loading and unloading machines, handling material, and early attempts to do
639:
98:
around age 8 or 9. The movie frightened him and his father suggested building a wooden model as therapy. Scheinman attended the now-defunct
286:
146:
48:
233:
In 1973, Scheinman started Vicarm Inc. to manufacture his robot arms, hiring Brian
Carlisle and Bruce Shimano, who later helped found
449:, conducted in 2010 by Peter Asaro and Selma Šabanović, Indiana University, Bloomington Indiana, for Indiana University and the IEEE.
149:, working for Bernard Roth on building hands and arms for computers. The lab had an electric prosthetic arm developed circa 1962 by
526:
373:
626:
695:
481:
705:
168:
His next goal was a fast arm, which became the
Stanford Hydraulic Arm. The hydraulic arm needed the full attention of the
720:
690:
513:
612:
361:
161:
that were difficult to compute. He became involved with new robot designs. One was the Orm arm, (Norwegian for
339:
at the age of 73. Up to the time of his death, Scheinman continued to consult and was a visiting professor at
700:
94:
325:. He was married to Sandra Auerback in August 2006. His engineer son Dave Scheinman is head of hardware for
710:
575:
406:
369:
469:
493:
35:
The
Stanford arm, designed in 1969 by Scheinman and later built by him, was the first electric robot arm
278:
150:
122:. His Bachelor's thesis was on controlling the depth of a model hydrofoil wing in the MIT towing tank.
549:
85:, where his father Léonard was stationed with the US Army. At the end of the war, the family moved to
305:, to join a new robotics and machine vision company he was forming as co-founder and vice-president.
89:
and his father returned to work as a professor of psychiatry. His mother taught at a Hebrew school.
36:
106:
as an undergraduate in engineering, as well as providing a foundation for his later inventions.
289:(PUMA). He served for a couple of years as General Manager of Unimation's West Coast division.
227:
197:
365:
47:
Scheinman's MIT Arm, built for MIT's
Artificial Intelligence Lab ca. 1972, forerunner of the
685:
680:
336:
130:
537:
8:
340:
126:
158:
99:
650:
119:
19:
137:, with projects on the Command Module heat shield and the Saturn rocket turbopumps.
353:
330:
298:
173:
82:
70:
RobotWorld linear motor. Manipulators or sensors were mounted on the opposite face.
446:
322:
262:
77:(December 28, 1942 – September 20, 2016) was an American pioneer in the field of
302:
134:
484:. PhD thesis, Stanford University, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 1968.
66:
674:
218:
253:
While studying at Stanford, Scheinman was awarded a fellowship sponsored by
270:
254:
193:
189:
177:
59:
380:
326:
234:
230:, and custom electric motors, rather than only off-the-shelf components.
54:
43:
24:
387:
306:
282:
266:
482:
D. L. Pieper, The kinematics of manipulators under computer control
201:
192:, an all-electric, 6-axis articulated robot designed to permit an
86:
31:
506:"History of the Assembly Line, DBusiness, Detroit, MI, Henry Ford"
458:
310:
258:
261:, the first industrial robot. Scheinman traveled with Devol and
238:
169:
78:
576:"Victor Scheinman, Assembly Line Robot Inventor, Dies at 73"
561:
602:
Gene Bylinsky, Fortune Magazine, December 17, 1979, p.90 ff
242:
285:, who further developed it, with support from GM, as the
115:
103:
386:
On June 22, 2006, broadcast of the American game show
145:
Scheinman was awarded a research assistantship at the
92:
Scheinman's first experience with robots was watching
351:
In 1979, Scheinman and his Vicarm were featured in a
665:
442:
440:
438:
436:
434:
672:
600:Those Smart Young Robots on the Production Line,
432:
430:
428:
426:
424:
422:
420:
418:
416:
414:
335:Victor Scheinman died on September 20, 2016, in
411:
407:Wedding: Sandra Auerback and Victor Scheinman
343:in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
459:Victor Scheinman: My Man in the Smithsonian
538:Clinical Lab Robots for Specimen Processing
475:
287:Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly
147:Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
217:Around 1972, Scheinman was asked by MIT's
374:American Society of Mechanical Engineers
65:
53:
42:
30:
18:
716:People from Humboldt County, California
673:
297:In 1979, Scheinman was approached by
248:
16:American robotics pioneer (1942–2016)
346:
133:. He had summer jobs working on the
13:
540:, Yaskawa, accessed March 19, 2020
14:
732:
659:
447:Victor Scheinman, an oral history
316:
188:In 1969, Scheinman invented the
644:
633:
619:
605:
593:
568:
554:
543:
368:Robotics Award in 1986 and the
183:
531:
520:
498:
487:
463:
452:
400:
362:Robotic Industries Association
321:His niece is a jazz violinist
1:
696:Scientists from New York City
393:
95:The Day the Earth Stood Still
37:designed for computer control
370:ASME Leonardo Da Vinci Award
292:
109:
7:
706:Stanford University faculty
140:
10:
737:
721:21st-century American Jews
691:Jewish American scientists
212:
151:Rancho Los Amigos Hospital
627:"Leonardo da Vinci Award"
472:, Computer History Museum
357:cover story on robotics.
27:with a PUMA robot in 2014
23:Victor Scheinman at the
527:Yaskawa RobotWorld page
360:Scheinman received the
257:, the inventor of the
75:Victor David Scheinman
71:
63:
51:
40:
28:
366:Joseph F. Engelberger
69:
57:
46:
34:
22:
701:American roboticists
494:Stanford Arm history
337:Petrolia, California
711:Industrial robotics
341:Stanford University
127:Stanford University
114:Scheinman attended
580:The New York Times
249:PUMA and Unimation
159:inverse kinematics
100:New Lincoln School
72:
64:
52:
41:
29:
510:www.dbusiness.com
347:Awards and honors
131:engineer's degree
120:Sikorsky Aircraft
81:. He was born in
728:
653:
648:
642:
637:
631:
630:
623:
617:
616:
609:
603:
597:
591:
590:
588:
586:
572:
566:
565:
558:
552:
547:
541:
535:
529:
524:
518:
517:
512:. Archived from
502:
496:
491:
485:
479:
473:
470:Rancho Arm image
467:
461:
456:
450:
444:
409:
404:
354:Fortune Magazine
331:Carbon (company)
299:Philippe Villers
235:Adept Technology
174:Donald L. Pieper
83:Augusta, Georgia
736:
735:
731:
730:
729:
727:
726:
725:
671:
670:
662:
657:
656:
651:Jeopardy! #5029
649:
645:
640:Robotics Online
638:
634:
625:
624:
620:
611:
610:
606:
598:
594:
584:
582:
574:
573:
569:
560:
559:
555:
550:www.nytimes.com
548:
544:
536:
532:
525:
521:
504:
503:
499:
492:
488:
480:
476:
468:
464:
457:
453:
445:
412:
405:
401:
396:
349:
323:Jenny Scheinman
319:
295:
263:Joe Engelberger
251:
215:
186:
153:, known as the
143:
112:
17:
12:
11:
5:
734:
724:
723:
718:
713:
708:
703:
698:
693:
688:
683:
669:
668:
661:
660:External links
658:
655:
654:
643:
632:
618:
604:
592:
567:
553:
542:
530:
519:
516:on 2013-05-12.
497:
486:
474:
462:
451:
410:
398:
397:
395:
392:
348:
345:
318:
315:
303:Computervision
294:
291:
279:General Motors
250:
247:
214:
211:
185:
182:
142:
139:
135:Apollo program
111:
108:
15:
9:
6:
4:
3:
2:
733:
722:
719:
717:
714:
712:
709:
707:
704:
702:
699:
697:
694:
692:
689:
687:
684:
682:
679:
678:
676:
667:
664:
663:
652:
647:
641:
636:
628:
622:
614:
613:"A3 Robotics"
608:
601:
596:
581:
577:
571:
563:
557:
551:
546:
539:
534:
528:
523:
515:
511:
507:
501:
495:
490:
483:
478:
471:
466:
460:
455:
448:
443:
441:
439:
437:
435:
433:
431:
429:
427:
425:
423:
421:
419:
417:
415:
408:
403:
399:
391:
389:
384:
382:
377:
375:
371:
367:
363:
358:
356:
355:
344:
342:
338:
333:
332:
328:
324:
317:Personal life
314:
312:
308:
304:
300:
290:
288:
284:
280:
274:
272:
268:
264:
260:
256:
246:
244:
240:
236:
231:
229:
225:
220:
219:Marvin Minsky
210:
206:
203:
199:
195:
191:
181:
179:
178:arm solutions
175:
171:
166:
164:
160:
156:
152:
148:
138:
136:
132:
128:
123:
121:
117:
107:
105:
101:
97:
96:
90:
88:
84:
80:
76:
68:
61:
56:
50:
45:
38:
33:
26:
21:
646:
635:
621:
607:
599:
595:
585:21 September
583:. Retrieved
579:
570:
562:"Who We Are"
556:
545:
533:
522:
514:the original
509:
500:
489:
477:
465:
454:
402:
385:
378:
359:
352:
350:
334:
320:
296:
275:
271:spot welding
255:George Devol
252:
232:
223:
216:
207:
194:arm solution
190:Stanford arm
187:
184:Stanford arm
167:
162:
154:
144:
124:
113:
93:
91:
74:
73:
60:linear motor
686:2016 deaths
681:1942 births
381:Smithsonian
327:3D printing
198:closed form
675:Categories
394:References
301:, then at
155:Rancho arm
25:MIT Museum
388:Jeopardy!
376:in 1990.
307:Automatix
293:Automatix
283:Unimation
267:Unimation
110:Education
329:company
228:backlash
202:computer
141:Robotics
87:Brooklyn
79:robotics
372:of the
311:Yaskawa
259:Unimate
241:, with
224:MIT Arm
213:MIT arm
666:Vicarm
239:LSI-11
170:PDP-6
163:snake
587:2016
243:6502
49:PUMA
364:'s
265:to
196:in
116:MIT
104:MIT
677::
578:.
508:.
413:^
383:.
180:.
629:.
615:.
589:.
564:.
39:.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
