Blatantly Random

Plen - Japanese Kit Robot I want for Christmas

Filed under: Japan, Tech, Video — Malcolm Owen @ 5:43 pm

Dear family,

I know that Christmas has been and gone, but since this is too good to wait for October or November, the prime time you start asking for clues as to what to get me for my birthday and “25 Dec”, but I figure you would really appreciate the early warning for this one, especially because it costs $2000.

The Plen is a robot kit from Japan that you construct yourself, and once finished you have your own bipedal friend. At less than a kilo, it won’t kill the cats (unless you add in a katana, please…), but it is kick ass enough to do walking, skating, grabbing and dropping and other wonderful things that a tiny robot with character can do.

It’s also going to be easier than ever before to buy me a robot, since the makers are actively looking for a North American distributor, which means it could be out in time for Xmas. Thankfully it’s been shown at CES, so everyone on the planet will have heard of it, and so it will be Europe-bound as well.
However, family, if you still balk at the price tag, I suggest reading those various internet links above and see for yourself…

Thanks

Malcolm.

P.S. Sorry about eating all the smoked cheese wheel. I know I told you it was Skynet awakening, but I lied.

[Best of the bunch - Coolest-Gadgets.com whom have a youtube video of it in action. Also, here's Plen.jp, the homepage of the bot]