The Press Democrat, Santa Rosa, California, June 12, 1940

Sparko was one half of the robot team built by the

Westinghouse Electric Corporation for the 1939 New York World’s Fair. His Partner,

Elektro, was a seven foot, almost 300 pound robotic man who had a vocabulary of 77 words and could walk forward and backward, smoke cigarettes, turn and bow his head, wave and salute, count to ten, blow up balloons, and could differentiate between green and red. J.M. Barnett, engineer at Westinghouse, told that Sparko was modeled after his scottie, Bonnie. After the World’s Fair Elektro and Sparko toured the country, before settling down at

Pacific Ocean Park in Venice, California, in 1957.