Jacques de Vaucanson was one of the great engineers of the Enlightenment, and Grenoble takes quiet pride in him. Born here in 1709, he went on to create the most celebrated automata of the 18th century: a flute player, a tabor player, and above all the famous Duck — a gilded mechanical bird with over 400 moving parts that, according to its creator, could eat grain, move it through an artificial digestive system, and void it the other end.
The philosophical implications were enormous. If a machine could simulate digestion, what was unique about life? The duck became a sensation in European courts and sparked debates about mechanism and vitalism that lasted a century. A recreation based on surviving descriptions and illustrations gives you a sense of the original's uncanny precision. Vaucanson later went on to pioneer the mechanized loom — which ultimately led, via the Jacquard loom, to the punch-card programmable machine and the computer. A good claim for Grenoble's place in the history of technology.