Boilerplate (robot) - Development

Development

Boilerplate was originally featured on a website created by Paul Guinan in 2000. The Boilerplate site details the history of a remarkable robot built in the late 19th century, and features photoshopped "archival images" in which Boilerplate (actually a 12-inch articulated model) is seen interacting with historical figures, such as Teddy Roosevelt and Pancho Villa. Becoming aware that some visitors to the site were taken in by its contents, making it an unintentional hoax, Guinan resolved to see how authentic he could make the character seem, working to ensure the descriptions of non-fictional events were accurate. He explained his motivation in a 2002 interview:

"Certainly I felt happy about having achieved my goal," he said. "I put this thing across as trying to be real, and people bought into it. So, that's a success! But, as an amateur historian, I feel a responsibility to get the story right. So I felt bad about some of these people being hoaxed. It was a mixed bag."

"But," he revealed, "I thought, if I was getting this reaction and I wasn't really trying, then what would happen if I really tried?"

Guinan estimated that roughly a third of the site's visitors treated its faux history as real. Comedian Chris Elliott, while realising that Boilerplate was fictional, thought that the spoof dated back the 19th century and included the character in one of his books (see below).

Guinan later expanded his website into The History of Robots in the Victorian Era, which features other "turn-of-the-century robots, both real and imagined".