What Leonardo da Vinci invention was a wooden vehicle designed to move by itself using coiled springs?

Leonardo da Vinci’s self-propelled cart was a wooden vehicle designed to move without being pushed by a person or animal. He planned it in the late 15th century using coiled springs as its source of stored energy.

The cart included a system of gears and programmable control elements. Pegs placed on the control mechanism could determine how the wheels turned, giving the device a limited ability to follow a predetermined route. Its exact purpose is uncertain, but it may have been intended for theatrical displays or court festivities rather than transport.

The vehicle is sometimes called the first robot because it could perform an automated movement. That label is useful as a modern comparison, though Leonardo’s machine was mechanical rather than electronic and had no ability to sense its surroundings.

A full-scale replica built in 2006 by researchers at the Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence demonstrated that the design could operate. The cart is therefore an important example of early programmable mechanical automation.