Watt Steam Engine

The Watt steam engine, a major driver in the industrial revolution, underscores the importance of engineering in modern history. This model is on display at the main building of the ETSIIM in Madrid, Spain
The concept of engineering has existed since ancient times as humans devised fundamental inventions such as the pulley, lever, and wheel. Each of these inventions is consistent with the modern definition of engineering, exploiting basic mechanical principles to develop useful tools and objects.
The term engineering itself has a much more recent etymology, deriving from the word engineer, which itself dates back to 1325, when an engine’er (literally, one who operates an engine) originally referred to “a constructor of military engines.” In this context, now obsolete, an “engine” referred to a military machine, i. e., a mechanical contraption used in war (for example, a catapult). The word “engine” itself is of even older origin, ultimately deriving from the Latin ingenium (c. 1250), meaning “innate quality, especially mental power, hence a clever invention.”
Later, as the design of civilian structures such as bridges and buildings matured as a technical discipline, the term civil engineering entered the lexicon as a way to distinguish between those specializing in the construction of such non-military projects and those involved in the older discipline of military engineering (the original meaning of the word “engineering,” now largely obsolete, with notable exceptions that have survived to the present day such as military engineering corps, e.g., the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.


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Robotics in the Middle Ages
Main article: Inventions in medieval Islam


Al-Jazari's programmable humanoid robots
In the 8th century, the Muslim alchemist, Jabir ibn Hayyan (Geber), included recipes for constructing artificial snakes, scorpions, and humans which would be subject to their creator's control in his coded Book of Stones. In 827, Caliph al-Mamun had a silver and golden tree in his palace in Baghdad, which had the features of an automatic machine. There were metal birds that sang automatically on the swinging branches of this tree built by Muslim inventors and engineers at the time. The Abbasid Caliph al-Muktadir also had a golden tree in his palace in Baghdad in 915, with birds on it flapping their wings and singing. In the 9th century, the Banū Mūsā brothers invented an automatic flute player which appears to have been the first programmable machine, and which they described in their Book of Ingenious Devices.
Al-Jazari is credited with creating the earliest forms of a programmable humanoid robot in 1206. Al-Jazari's automaton was originally a boat with four automatic musicians that floated on a lake to entertain guests at royal drinking parties. His mechanism had a programmable drum machine with pegs (cams) that bump into little levers that operated the percussion. The drummer could be made to play different rhythms and different drum patterns if the pegs were moved around. According to Charles B. Fowler, the automata were a "robot band" which performed "more than fifty facial and body actions during each musical selection."
Al-Jazari also invented a hand washing automaton first employing the flush mechanism now used in modern flush toilets. It features a female automaton standing by a basin filled with water. When the user pulls the lever, the water drains and the female automaton refills the basin. His "peacock fountain" was another more sophisticated hand washing device featuring humanoid automata as servants which offer soap and towels. Mark E. Rosheim describes it as follows: "Pulling a plug on the peacock's tail releases water out of the beak; as the dirty water from the basin fills the hollow base a float rises and actuates a linkage which makes a servant figure appear from behind a door under the peacock and offer soap. When more water is used, a second float at a higher level trips and causes the appearance of a second servant figure — with a towel!" Al-Jazari thus appears to have been the first inventor to display an interest in creating human-like machines for practical purposes such as manipulating the environment for human comfort.

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