Could you make a steampunk style robot powered by steam power and Clockwork mechanics (In such a way that it would practical)?
Note: The question is not limited to humanoid robots despite this being the most common form. In steampunk there are plenty of exceptions.
Does modern science allow a true clockwork robot?
The long answer is: A robot consists of 3 basic components.
Building servo motors that use steam to operate is possible and you can also use artificial muscles (technically you could use tanned animal intestines for this purpose in the Victorian era before polymers) so the first part is entirely possible.
This part is what gives the structure and allows the motor systems to function, there is no problem in just using materials available in the Victorian era.
This is the prosador and is where the AI or algorithm is executed. This is the most complex part (gosh, I'm going to have to explain how a processor works mathematically for this) there are 3 solutions for this part, but 2 are cheating.
Needless to say, this type of robot would have no vision and I am afraid there is no way to give it vision without electricity. In short the answer is yes, and I hope I haven't bored anyone with all that explanation.
It has been done on a small scale by model engineers and steampunk enthusiasts. Here are a couple of examples:
How to Use Real Steam Power For... Robots?
The author, Austin Sirkin, sounds a note of caution:
First off, let me say this—using real steam power is dangerous, and heavy, and just generally not worth it when you have modern alternatives. Except, you know, if you're a Steampunk.
He goes on to say that things like the quadrupedal walking robot created by I-Wei Huang and shown in the video accompanying the article can be built with the aid of a laser cutter, necessary to cut gearworks, axles, belts and "other mechanical methods of delivering power from one place to another" with sufficient precision to stop the machine vibrating to bits. Then he warns again that unless you know exactly what you are doing to attempt to build a steam engine is extremely dangerous, but fortunately there are plenty of reliable ready-built small steam engines for sale.
Via the above I found a second article which introduces a very elegant steam powered hexapod robot built by "Professeur Shadoko":
Meet the Steam Ant: A Steampunk-Inspired Hexapod Robot That's Actually Powered by Steam!
Inspired by the Steam Walker by Crabfu Steamworks, Professeur Shadoko of French DIY blog Brico Bidules built this awesome steampunk Steam Ant that's powered by a steam engine, complete with smoke stack!
The engine is a steam boiler that uses a small, dual-acting cylinder. It's heated with Esbit hexamine fuel tablets, which don't produce any smoke or ashes. The legs are made of brass tubes, which are attached to gears, with extruded aluminum feet.
Whether these small devices built for fun could practically be scaled up in size and complexity so that they could perform the more traditional SF functions of a robot, such as domestic service or fighting giant alien mecha, is another question.
LATER EDIT: I passed the question to someone I know who is into model engineering and steam engines, and he adds the following thoughts:
"For a steam powered robot you will need some material to burn to provide the heat. Lump coal is too bulky. You could try vapourized diesel fuel or coal dust on a fluidized bed. Use steam jets to control combustion. Or, to provide even more heat, you could use the sort of materials that are suitable for rocket fuel such as a liquid hydrogen-oxygen burn, hydrazine or plastic chips burning in nitrogen oxide.
"Use stainless steel to make the boiler. For that quantity of heat you will need to use “flash steam”. This means high speed steam generation done not in a boiler but in a tube network. Spiral stainless steel tubes would probably be best.
"Water will not do as the matter to be vapourized. Try freon or another chlorofluorocarbon, as used in fridges. Liquid chlorine might be possible. Or, for real heat, use liquid sodium in an extreme high pressure heater.
"The biggest decision is whether you are going to move the robot’s limbs by using steam for reciprocating pistons or turbines. With turbines you need a lot of gearing down, because you need to spin turbines at high speed. For pistons you could use direct muscle effect. A double-acting piston would provide bi-directional movement of a limb via a system of levers.
"One way you could “cheat” is to simply use steam to power a dynamo, thus making a steam-electric robot.
"It would be most appropriate to have the robot controlled by a Difference Engine as designed by Charles Babbage, but this would need to be quite large. Assuming the robot is controlled by a modern-style computer, the computer will need an electrical supply. To use an off the shelf battery would be crass. You could act more in the spirit of the genre by placing a steam-powered generator somewhere on the robot, or there could be a thermoelectric generator. The latter would require one end of the thermocouple to be kept cold. This could be done by massive radiating fins, or a cooling fan, or both. The electrical supply could be used to charge up an accumulator of sorts.
"By the way, one of Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat books featured steam powered robots on a world whose technology had regressed. They occasionally had to stop whatever they were doing in order to shovel coal in their tummies. However this was not an entirely realistic presentation of the concept."
I cannot offer the most well-explained answer, but all you need to do is using a steam-engine to power a electric generator. Add some batteries or other forms of electric storage (elcos?) and you've got electric power for your computer.
And now add electric motors to power all what's needed, like clockworks and... well, that's it. After all, it would be like the robots used today, but with a locomotive-like exhaust (except you use these smokeless pallets Lostinfrance did mention)
But it has been said already: it will not be the most efficient form of powering a robot... but maybe the most Victorian.
Seems to be one of the only methods to build "roving" or self propelled robots so far......
Modern robots uses bulky, inefficient servo motors, primarily because they were built to be precise, not agile or fast. Living things, on the other hand, uses what resembles hydraulics in robotics: long, rod or band like elements that changes their length on command, like muscles.
The same also applies to construction machinery, for example, excavators uses an arm driven by three hydraulic cylinders, forklifts uses one pneumatic cylinder, both which are designed to be agile, fast and strong, but not precise. Your robots would likewise be made to use similar structures, pneumatics or hydraulics as a direct swap-in for muscles.
There is a field called fluidics in modern research, and one of it’s usage is to build logics that is independent to it’s substrate: metal, plastic or wood are all the same when used to make a whistle, same for fluidic transistors or chips. Chips which can be used as the control unit of the robot. Other things like clockwork, would also work as a cpu.
As for power, use a dual action steam or pneumatic cylinder as the muscle and a small steam engine to power the controls(any computer would work.), and everything left is a boiler. Use dichloromethane as your working fluid, make your boiler out of stainless steel, and drop in a pump. The rest is just fuel and some way to burn it. Coal in a firebox works well.(though probably anything smaller than a locomotive or car should use compressed air instead)
For controlling, use an automaton: cam driven mechanism that works like real living creatures, perfected at the 18th century. Use a system of valves to control your actuators, and clockwork gear mechanism to drive something that needs to be precise.
However, manual piloting would work the best. The human brain have the uncanny capability to extend any limb, sensory organ or appendage to outside the body if an adequate control linking process is used. This means that a manned robot would, probably, walk and do things like man, at least if it is made to be mechanically capable to do such things.
It turned out that there are not so much difference between a robot and a vehicle after all.
The short answer is Yes.
It would be incredibly inefficient, and it would ultimately rust out, but sure, why not?
Just remember that you need electricity to run the computer.
I know this question is old, but it came up in a related question link and I found it interesting so this is an answer for anyone else who might have the same idea and stumble upon this question.
The other answers indicate that it may be possible to make something which looks like a robot using steam power, but I believe these would just be machines or RC biped/hexapods etc.
Most definitions of "robot" include words to the effect of "perform tasks automatically/independently" (Cambridge, Mirriam Webster, Collins), which requires the ability to sense to do reliably.
Without sensing, the robot is limited to using "dead-reckoning", where it calculates its current motor positions based on its initial positions and whatever it has "done" between then and now. This means the robot can only act in tightly controlled environments which have been precisely measured and calibrated, and then constant manual calibration needs to be performed to account for drift.
Once you add the ability to sense, though, the robot can act in unfamiliar environments and calibrate itself. A simple method that robots can use to perform actions is the "sense-think-act" model (aka. sense-plan-act), where sensors are read, calculations are performed on the values and then an action is performed as a result (e.g., activate motor 3).
In the case of a steampunk/clockwork robot you would have difficulty with things like computer vision as you would have no lasers/cameras, so your robots would be moving blind in unfamiliar environments. Maybe you could create some kind of steampunk sonar, or long whisker-type things with mechanical pressure sensors. But I think it may be extremely difficult, at best, to create the necessary sensors without mid to late 20th century technology.
