Robot | play set:Meccano Meccanoid G15 KS

Meccano construction sets have been around since the early 20th century, when Frank Hornby of Liverpool, England assembled a set of metal strips, plates, wheels, gears, girders, and nuts and bolts needed to build models of skyscrapers, bridges, towers, and other city structures. Hornby originally named his building set Mechanics Made Easy, later shortened to its more familiar name. Meccano Ltd. produced the sets between 1908 and 1980. For decades, Meccano sets encouraged kids to develop skills in manual dexterity and problem solving, ideally, producing mechanical engineers for the future. (Meccano's instructions even included deliberate errors to advance kids' talents in experimentation, trouble shooting, and puzzling out problems.) More recently, the company has forsaken its mechanical engineering principles for robotics. The 2015 Meccanoid G15 KS comes as a collection of familiar Meccano parts (though many made of plastic) compatible with pieces of older sets, but the user-friendly instructions guide kids in building a personal robot that tells jokes, ask questions, relates fun facts, starts conversations, play games, and can remember names and birthdays. Its Mecca Brain has three programming modes - learned intelligence movement, an app called "ragdoll avatar," and motion capture by which the robot mics movements using the camera a smartphone mounted on its chest. The robot can dance, moves its arms, rotate its "head," and roll forward and backward. Meccanoid responds to more than 100 preprogramed commands and can learn more. Mcannoid parts can build a four-foot tall friend, a four-legged pet, and many other creatures of a child's imagination.