You may know Meccano as the 114-year-old brand behind Erector sets. ‘We’re known for real-life construction sets and that’s still the DNA of who we are,’ a spokeswoman told Team Clark. ‘We wanted to continue the maker tradition, but incorporate robotic technology.’ That led to the launch of the Meccanoid G15 last year.
Introducing the G15
With the G15, kids can literally build these things from start to finish. Each unit has a ‘meccabrain’ which provides that instant play gratification: These devices can sing, dance and you can even twirl them around by hand because the robot’s hands have sensory activation. Then there’s also voice recognition. The G15 can tells jokes, do the waltz, rap and so much more.
But the beauty is there are different levels of programming to the G15. Using what’s called learned intelligent motion, a child can learn computer programming and coding with just the push of a button. There’s also an app technology that goes with it, where you can move the avatar and program the movements.
Best of all, the technology is completely open source. So once you really become an incredible programmer, you can hack the meccanoid to do anything you want it to do. These products are aimed at ages 8 and up.
The price? There’s a smaller two-foot version for $150. It has limited head and neck movement, but the same brain and play patterns as the larger version. The larger version is four feet and costs $399.
