Kate Thomas, 20, from Bedford, N.H., a student in the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics course at Bryant University, Smithfield, checks on her creation yesterday morning.

The Providence Journal / Bill Murphy

SMITHFIELD — The robots took over yesterday at Bryant University.

Well, not exactly. But the contraptions put together by Prof. Brian Blais’ students did capture attention while strutting their stuff in the rotunda of the school’s Unistructure.

Blais, whose field is science and technology, said one of the objects of the exercise was to demonstrate artificial intelligence, or AI in robotics parlance.

His students assembled 10 robotic examples, all created from Leggos, the children’s engineering kit.

While robots have been employed for decades in such fields as assembly-line manufacturing, there was a time even before the harnessing of electricity when people watched in awe as a mechanical device apparently performed a complex task flawlessly.

One of the wonders of the 18th-century Western world was The Turk, a chess-playing automaton that mowed down nearly all challengers. When opponents made their move, the be-turbaned gizmo would whir and reach out a metal hand to move its chess pieces. In those days, when chess claimed more of the public’s imagination than today, the device was regarded practically as another Wonder of the World.

Alas, no great robotic frontier had been crossed. The Turk sat at one end of a cabinet, on which reposed a chessboard. Inside the cabinet, cunningly concealed, crouched a very small but very expert chess player, who could observe the chessboard through a narrow slit. He operated various controls to trounce the patzers — poor players — who had forked over coins for the experience.

Yesterday’s demonstration was literally centuries removed from that game. The devices were powered by rechargeable batteries, for example.

Blais said no remote controls were permitted. The robots had to figure out tasks by themselves.

The device created by sophomore Christina Ho, for example, was a sugar dispenser.

“A sensor decides whether it’s looking at a black or a white sheet,” she said. “Then it decides which one it wants to eat.”

Blais said other robots included one that had to make its way through a cardboard maze. Another conducted a search-and-rescue mission. “It had to find its way down a meandering path and come back and report,” he said.

Yet another tossed Ping-Pong balls into a basket.

“They’re all very different,” Blais said.

tmorgan@projo.com