You Know You’re an Engineer if... You Watched These Movies and TV Shows as a KidYou Know You’re an Engineer if... You Watched These Movies and TV Shows as a Kid

Here are some of classic engineering and robot movies and TV shows from the 1950s and 1960s.

Rob Spiegel

March 18, 2020

10 Slides
2001: a Space Odyssey, robot movies

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Every kid who grew up to be an engineer loved robots. The love of science fiction and robots seems to follow closely on  the heels of the fascination with dinosaurs.

Some of these movies were scary for a kid, like the deadly robot in The Day the Earth Stood Still. Others were lovable, like Robbie the Robot in Forbidden Planet. Some were terrifying in a more realistic way, such as HAL in 2001 a Space Odyssey was its nightmarish calm and patronizing tone.

Here’s a look at robots depicted in movies and on TV during the 1950s and 1960s. Here’s a collection of the classics. We’ve omitted the scores of forgettable B movies such as Santa Claus Conquers the Martians and Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.

Rob Spiegel has covered automation and control for 19 years, 17 of them for Design News. Other topics he has covered include supply chain technology, alternative energy, and cyber security. For 10 years, he was owner and publisher of the food magazine Chile Pepper.

About the Author

Rob Spiegel

Rob Spiegel serves as a senior editor for Design News. He started with Design News in 2002 as a freelancer covering sustainability issues, including the transistion in electronic components to RoHS compliance. Rob was hired by Design News as senior editor in 2011 to cover automation, manufacturing, 3D printing, robotics, AI, and more.

Prior to his work with Design News, Rob worked as a senior editor for Electronic News and Ecommerce Business. He served as contributing editolr to Automation World for eight years, and he has contributed to Supply Chain Management Review, Logistics Management, Ecommerce Times, and many other trade publications. He is the author of six books on small business and internet commerce, inclluding Net Strategy: Charting the Digital Course for Your Company's Growth.

He has been published in magazines that range from Rolling Stone to True Confessions.

Rob has won a number of awards for his technolloghy coverage, including a Maggy Award for a Design News article on the Jeep Cherokee hacking, and a Launch Team award for Ecommerce Business. Rob has also won awards for his leadership postions in the American Marketing Association and SouthWest Writers.

Before covering technology, Rob spent 10 years as publisher and owner of Chile Pepper Magazine, a national consumer food publication. He has published hundreds of poems and scores of short stories in national publications.

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