Zadoc P. Dederick, along with Isaac Grass, were the creators of a steam-powered humanlike robot designed to pull a cart. The invention was patented on March 24, 1868, as patent 75874, and operated through a system of levers and cranks, attached to steam powered pistons and a boiler. The original prototype cost $2000 (about $32,487 in modern US dollars) and was built in Newark, New Jersey. Plans to produce it for $300 never went through, making this an example of an early development in steam power that was abandoned. Nontheless, inventions such as this one spurred interest in steam power, as exemplified by novels such as The Steam Man of the Prairies, and by many immitations and hoaxes that appeared as a result.




en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zadoc_Dederick

That's pretty amazing how they had the forsight to even contemplate such a device back then. I like that

I bet they were like real life Dr Emmett Brown's

psketti wrote:
I would like to see the machine actually working,maybe with steam coming out of the top hat.

Not sure what the motivation was behind creation.

Whether the makers thought it was to unusual having a powered vehicle with no outward link to a living creature was to much for people to take or they wanted to show off their engineering skills?

I think there was another similar called a steam king.

Holy crap! That's some creativity in work! Its weird to think why did these guys go that far to actually invent a steam engine which walks and looks like a human, I can't really get my head around it. You would think that a wheeled version of the same machine would be so much more simple to build.

Anyway, that's really cool way of using steam power for locomotion! The inventors were surely resourceful and intelligent folks with huge imagination. I mean who comes up with the idea of steam powered man looking walking device for pulling carts around?