Meccanoid G15 Personal Robot
This page is somewhat of a departure from the rest of the site in that it is about the latest Meccano product, Meccanoid, the personal robot. My excuse is that Meccanoid is made of plastic, albeit a fancy modern polycarbonate plastic. But in fact no excuses are really necessary for playing with Meccanoid because he is a very cool robot.
The Meccanoid G15 is the 2ft (60cm) tall smaller brother to the massive 4ft (120cm) Meccanoid G15KS. The G15 comprises some 142 parts (excluding nuts & bolts) and took me some 5 or 6 hours to build over two days. The build quality is good and the instructions very clear, describing the build in 87 steps, which makes the building very enjoyable. Nevertheless I made several mistakes along the way which I had to correct at various points when I noticed - concentration during building is required ! The G15 is powered by 4 x 1.5v C batteries. I've chosen to use rechargeable NiMH C batteries. Despite the lower voltage (4 x 1.2v) Meccanoid seems to run fine on them. And so I finally I powered up my Meccanoid and he has been a lot of fun. After introductions he likes to tell jokes, dance, perform kung-fu (of sorts) and going for walks being led by the hand. Its still early days. I haven't tried updating him with the latest software yet which some blogs suggest will improve the rather hit or miss voice recognition. Then there is getting him connected with the Meccanoid app downloaded on to my phone. All yet to come and more I'm sure. But great fun so far. |
December 2015