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Gismo was a robot from another time; a time when boys played with electric motors and train sets, with maybe an occasional "Cowboys and Indians" game outside thrown in...

As the article says, "Gismo the Great" is "next of kin" to Sherwood Fuehrer's "fantastic robot" featured in the June 1956 issue of Boys Life magazine.

Sometime in the 1980s, I spent a portion of my youth as a Cub Scout, and as part of this I had a subscription to Boys Life magazine (new window). During that time, interest in robotics had a peak (as seems to occur regularly in human history, I have noticed); many magazine articles and television programs were produced about robots, and Boys Life was no exception. They had an article (of which I hope to find my copy) of building "Gismo 2", which used a surplus motor (no longer available; originally made for the Milton Bradley Big Trak, incidentally) as its drive system. In this article, they described the original Gismo, and had an offer to send a photocopy of the original plans to those who wanted a copy. I, of course, sent my SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope for you youngin's out there!) and obtained a copy.

I haven't been able to find a copy of these plans on the internet, and as I was browsing the Modern Mechanix site, I noticed in the comments of an article that people were interested in them - so I made a PDF of what I had (please don't sue me, Boys Life - I do this for love, not for profit), a copy of which is provided for download (see below).

At Boys Life magazine, it appears that gismo is still going strong and has gone thru a couple of new versions (3 and 4); you can find out how to build Gismo 4 on Boys Life site by following this link:

http://boyslife.org/hobbies-projects/projects/787/build-a-working-robot/ (new window)

Enjoy!