Victor Scheinman

Timeline

1. 1963–1969

   MIT and Stanford degrees

   He completes a degree in aeronautics and astronautics at MIT in 1963. At Stanford he earns a master's degree in 1965 and an engineer's degree in mechanical engineering in 1969.

2. 1969

   The Stanford Arm

   As a research assistant at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, he works for Bernard Roth on hands and arms for computers. He invents the Stanford Arm in 1969, an all-electric, six-axis robot arm under computer control, and the lab uses it for hand-eye projects and teaching for more than 20 years.

3. 1973

   Founding Vicarm

   At Marvin Minsky's request, he designs the MIT Arm at the MIT AI lab. In 1973, he starts Vicarm Inc. to manufacture his robot arms, hiring Brian Carlisle and Bruce Shimano, and the company soon offers a controller and the VAL language for controlling the robot.

4. 1977

   The PUMA at Unimation

   In 1977, he sells his design to Unimation, which develops it with support from General Motors as the Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly, or PUMA. He then serves for a couple of years as General Manager of Unimation's West Coast division.

5. 1980s

   RobotWorld at Automatix

   In 1980, he leaves Unimation to join Automatix, the robotics and machine vision company formed by Philippe Villers, and runs its west coast office. There he develops RobotWorld, a system of small cooperating robot modules; when Automatix stops selling robots in the early 1990s, Yaskawa takes over the RobotWorld line and he consults for Yaskawa for several years.

6. 1986

   The Engelberger Robotics Award

   He wins the Robotics Industries Association's Joseph F. Engelberger Award for technology in 1986.

7. 1990

   The Leonardo da Vinci Award

   In 1990, he receives the Leonardo da Vinci Award of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, its top award in product design and invention.

8. 2010–2016

   Visiting professor at Stanford

   He continues to consult and is a visiting professor in Stanford's Department of Mechanical Engineering, and he gives an oral history interview to the IEEE History Center in 2010. He dies in 2016 at age 73.