Meet Meccanoid at Motat This Queens Birthday Weekend

Meet Meccanoid at MOTAT This Queens Birthday Weekend

The Auckland public has the chance to interact with Meccano’s award-winning personal child-size robot, Meccanoid, at the Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT) until the end of Queen’s Birthday long weekend.

Only a very few of these working, pre-production robots currently exist around the world and visitors to the Museum have the unique opportunity to see them demonstrated. There is also a display of models from the Meccano Club as well as a build and bash table for the kids to try their hand at building a few constructions of their own.

Meccanoid is a 122cm (4ft) tall interactive 'friend' that initiates conversations, tells jokes, plays games, dances and does exercise. It has voice recognition and is capable of answering questions and responding to requests. Meccanoid can even talk and encourage its owner through the process as they are building it!

Meccanoid is programmable with easy-to-use kid-friendly processes. At the push of a button, it records movements and sounds and then plays them back on command. Using Bluetooth and a downloadable app on a smart device, Meccanoid can be controlled remotely and even mimics movements in real time with motion capture.

In January, Meccanoid was awarded the top prize at the Living in Digital Times’ Last Gadget Standing Showdown at the 2015 International CES® (Consumer Electronics Show) held in Las Vegas. At the show, Meccanoid also picked up PC Mag's Best of 2015 CES - Best Toy, and Geek Beat TV's Top Pick CES 2015.

"The Last Gadget Standing award in particular is a real mark of credibility for Meccanoid," says Sunil Dahya, Managing Director of Elephanta, the distributors of Meccano in New Zealand. "It confirms that Meccanoid is more than just a kid’s toy, it's a serious innovation in the high tech programmable robotics field."

It’s this innovation that is of particular interest to MOTAT CEO, Michael Frawley. “My generation grew up with Meccano" Mr Frawley says "and I think it’s fantastic that they are still building tools to encourage children to nurture their curiosity through play by experimenting with technology while at the same time learning engineering skills and core science."

The Meccanoid robot will be available as a consumer product in New Zealand from the time of its worldwide launch in September. Meccanoid will retail in New Zealand for NZ$499.99, with the smaller 61cm (2ft) tall version also available for NZ$299.99. They can be pre-ordered from MOTAT.

Meccano is one of the oldest toy companies in the world - its system of iconic re-usable metal strips, plates, wheels, axles, motors, nuts and bolts was invented by Frank Hornby in England in 1898. Hornby conceived Meccano as a model-construction toy based on the principles of mechanical engineering, and through the years it has inspired countless engineers, designers, architects and creative minds of all ages. It was even used back in 1935 to build New Zealand’s first analogue computer, The Differential Analyser, which now has its home amongst MOTAT’s collection.

Still today, Meccano is the only mainstream toy brand that combines real life construction, engineering, technology, tools, and materials to stretch the imaginations of children and encouraging them to learn while having fun.

Be sure to visit MOTAT and give the awesome Meccanoid robots a high five before they head off shore!

ENDS

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