Who Is Waldo Anyway?

Until I started to investigate these Waldo remote systems I figured that the name "Waldo" was an acronym for something too technical for the layman to understand. In actual fact it turns out that the name was given in homage to a short science fiction story by the author Robert A Heinlein.

The story of Waldo Farthingwaite-Jones describes a born weakling who uses his intellect and family money to develop a device, the "Synchronous Reduplicating Pantograph", that would enable it's user to control much larger and more powerful machines through the manipulation of a remote glove.

There is an obvious difference between Heinlein's idea and the focus of my investigations in that the remote controller from the story was used to manipulate robotic machinery while my own aim is to control digital objects. This manipulation of a digital environment is simply a natural evolution of Heinlein's original fiction which is based on the potential use of available technologies.

Prior to Henson's digital controller Waldo controllers have been used and still are used to manipulate robotic devices in scientific, entertainment and industrial environments. The following video illustrates the evolution of the control system, from rod to Waldo, for the Doozers, characters from the TV show Fraggle Rock.

I realise that my reference appears to continually point to the work of the Henson company but what other bench mark is there for the technological development of puppetry for entertainment? It will be very interesting to discover the work other pioneers in this field through my investigations towards the development of my own remote manipulator.