Edinburgh University's AI dept's legendary founder Donald Michie ( & close wartime friend of Turing) built a computer out of matchboxes that learns to play Tic Tac Toe.<p><a href="http://makezine.com/2009/11/02/mechanical-tic-tac-toe-computer/" rel="nofollow">http://makezine.com/2009/11/02/mechanical-tic-tac-toe-comput...</a><p>Michie is arguably the grandfather of reinforcement learning.