Muszka was inspired to build a demonstration robot by the idea of psychologist József Király. The machine is variously referred to as Szegedi Katicabogár, Szegedi Katica or just Katica in Hungarian sources, with various capitalizations. English-language sources tend to use either Ladybird or Ladybug, depending on the variety of English used. Nonetheless all of these names refer to the original robot, not to any of the replicas.
Structure
The Ladybird is a roughly hemispherical robot which is wide, tall and long. It has a metal baseplate on which the electronics lie, which are enclosed by a red shell with black spots. This shell was originally varnished papier-mâché, but due to deterioration, the Ladybird now has a plastic shell mimicking the original one. The black spots themselves are buttons, and the top of the shell also has a small sliding vane. The robot has two red "eyes", three photosensors and a mechanical sensor in the front to detect collisions with obstacles. It also contains an electromechanical buzzer to give audible feedback. Due to the technical difficulties of the time, Muszka couldn't include a battery, and so the Ladybird gets the required electricity using an umbilical power cable. The machine has three rubber wheels, two fixed wheels in front which are driven by automobile windscreen wiper motors, and a free-rotating caster wheel at the back. By design, the Ladybird is incapable of going in reverse.
Operation
The Ladybird emulates basic phototaxis as well as conditional and unconditional reflexes. Phototaxis is exhibited by the machine's rudimentary ability to "follow" a sufficiently strong light source which shines into its photosensors; the centre sensor turns on both motors to propel the robot forward, the left- and right-side sensors turn on only the opposite side's motor to effectively make the machine turn towards the light source. When turning or moving forward, the robot's "eyes" are fully alight, when it is stationary, they are just dimly lit. Conditional reflexes are emulated by the Ladybird's ability to associate the "go" signal represented by the light source with a certain sound frequency. If the front photosensor and the microphone both receives the rightstimuli for a certain amount of time, the robot gains the ability to move forward just by "hearing" the right frequency of sound. This "memory" fades away with time, or it can be erased by pressing any of the buttons on the shell. Unconditional reflexes are emulated by the Ladybird's "refusal" to move in response to either light or sound stimuli when it "gets hurt", when any of its black dots are pressed. In this case it also "cries" using its buzzer, its "eyes" go fully dark, and it "forgets" about the conditioning. It can only be "soothed" and activated again by being "petted", by slightly pressing the sliding vane on top of the shell. The Ladybird also "cries" and stops its motors when it hits an obstacle, such as the side walls of its demonstration pen. The University of Szeged's Java simulation of the Ladybird accurately mirrors the behaviour of the actual machine, except that the simulated robot can go in reverse.
Publicity
In the 1960s the Ladybird was featured multiple times on MTV, then the only television channel in the People's Republic of Hungary. In December 2011, the Science Museum of London hosted one of the replicas of the Ladybird in its 4-day Robotville Festival exhibition, alongside with modern robots of various kinds. The replica was presented by Muszka and his assistant, Csaba Gyuricza.
