This is a show case of the Nikola Tesla radio controlled boat.

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In 1898, six years before the Wright brothers flew, Tesla designed and built a pair of radio controlled boats. He applied for and was granted patent number 613,809 "Method of and Apparatus for Controlling Mechanism of Moving Vessels or Vehicles" by the US Patent Office for these boats. The craft were constructed of iron, powered by a electric battery of his own design, and equipped with a radio-mechanical receiver that accepted commands from a wireless transmitter. The boats were equipped with a large whip antenna, a modular space that could carry a charge, diving rudders, a prop and electric running lights that could all be remotely controlled. Tesla demonstrated the vessels to a shocked crowd in an indoor pool at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The crowd was amazed how Tesla, always a showman, maneuvered his six-foot-long boat in patterns through the water, and then stopped and started the craft. He even had the forethought to equip his boats with a crude logic gate which prevented them from being taken over by another transmitter other than his own. The craft alarmed those in the crowd who saw it and who claimed it to be everything from magic and telepathy to being piloted by a trained monkey hidden inside.

Tesla referred to the craft as telautomatons.

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