Saturday, July 01, 2006

Robot Rower


Robot Rower
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.
Isn’t eBay dangerous ? Some light browsing ends up with the purchase of all sorts of unnecessary junk.

Not that this applies to my latest purchase, a “Rowboat kit” from Tamiya. 6 quid including postage.

What posses the Japanese producer of plastic kits to knock this sort of thing out ? Tooling up must cost a fortune and yet the sales are never going to be huge. Serious work has gone into making this a joy to build – no soldering or glueing just screw together assembly. The gearbox is neat and includes a hexagonal rod for the drive to the “shoulders” which must ramp the costs up on its own. A small tube of grease is included for the gears and some polystyrene sits at the back for extra floatation, or at least to protect against sinking.

On a hot afternoon this was fun to assemble. Half an hours leisurely work and then off to the pool for playtime. The little robot paddles across the water at quite a speed. His rowing action really is good. When he traverses the boating lake he’ll give plenty of people a good laugh.

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