A remarkable new feature in downtown London makes for some incredible sightseeing. An exhibition opening at London’s Science Museum called “Robots” chronicles the 500 years or so of humanity trying to build intelligent machines, and it features some cool sights like a 244-year-old model of a silver swan and a singing robot.

The RoboThespian is a full-sized robot that moves around and does vocal exercises as well as a theatrical performance every 20 minutes, and the Silver Swan was built in the 18th century by John Joseph Merlin, who invented roller skates and was featured at the 1867 Paris Exhibition. Mark Twin saw the swan, and described it in the novel “The Innocents Aboard.”

There’s also the T-800 robot used to film the Terminator’s Salvation, and Honda’s ASIMO robot. One robotic head called Inkha offers fashion advise to curious onlookers.

Here is the museum’s description of the exhibition.

From the dawn of mechanised human forms to cutting-edge technology fresh from the lab, Robots reveals the astonishing 500-year quest to make machines human.

Focusing on why they exist rather than on how they work, our blockbuster exhibition explores the ways robots mirror humanity and the insights they offer into our ambitions, desires and position in a rapidly changing world.

From the dawn of mechanised human forms to cutting-edge technology fresh from the lab, Robots reveals the astonishing 500-year quest to make machines human.

Focusing on why they exist rather than on how they work, our blockbuster exhibition explores the ways robots mirror humanity and the insights they offer into our ambitions, desires and position in a rapidly changing world.

Join us at Lates, our free adults-only evening, on Wednesday 22 February 2017 (and on the last Wednesday of each month until August) for a chance to see Robots after-hours at a discount price.

Exhibition tickets are available with or without an optional 10% donation to the Museum.

Robots takes you on an incredible journey spanning five centuries, illustrated with robotic artefacts from around the globe from a 16th century mechanised monk to some of film’s most iconic robotic creations and the very latest humanoids:

The incredible Silver Swan – on loan from the Bowes Museum in County Durham – will be on display in the Robots exhibition from 8 February to 23 March 2017.

This life-size clockwork automaton is the only one of its kind in the world. Its performances have enchanted audiences for four centuries and we are thrilled visitors to Robots will see the Swan play here in London too.

The Swan will play on 8, 10, 13, 15, and 17 February at 10.25, then every weekday from 20 February – 23 March also at 10.25.

Two Friday evening performances, on 24 February and 10 March, will take place at 18.30.

Get ready for a feast of mechanoid mirth, cybernetic silliness and singularity hilarity! Expect the bionic and the ironic as the Science Museum presents perhaps the world’s first comedy quiz show to be hosted by a real-life working robot.

Join our very special guest host RoboThespian for a robot-themed comedy quiz show featuring Robin Ince (The Infinite Monkey Cage), Ed Gamble (Mock the Week, Never Mind the Buzzcocks) Lou Sanders (Russell Howard’s Good News), Rose Matafeo (Funny Girls, Have I Got News for You?), Edinburgh Fringe 2015 Best Newcomer nominee John Henry Falle a.k.a. The Story Beast, our in-house science-comedy duo Punk Science and more special comedy guests to be announced.

With some of the nation’s finest comics going head to head to test their knowledge of all things robotic, Paranoid Androids and Electric Sheep is sure to be hilarious, and you’ll no doubt learn a thing or two about our mechanical friends.

Our perception of robots has been formed as much by art as it has by science, and perhaps no medium has been more influential than film in shaping and reflecting our fears, anxieties, hopes and dreams about our cybernetic counterparts.

This double bill presents arguably the two most iconic robots in screen history, beginning with James Cameron’s original 1984 thriller The Terminator, featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger as the time-travelling robot assassin stalking the streets of downtown LA. The second film in the double bill is Paul Verhoeven’s biting 1987 satirical sci-fi classic RoboCop. Set in a dystopian future Detroit, RoboCop tells the story of a police officer killed in the line of duty, brought back to life as a chrome-plated, indestructible, cyborg crime-fighting machine.

This screening event will be introduced by Dr Emine Yilmaz, Faculty Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute and Associate Professor at UCL’s Department of Computer Science, who will examine the question ‘Could Skynet come true?’.