Written on February 28, 2009 – 3:05 pm | by Maria Mihale |
For those who have a lousy memory (me included, what a shame!), Topobo was an incredible construction toy that was developed by a couple of ingenious designers working at the MIT Media Lab, such as Hayes Raffle, Amanda Parkes and Hiroshi Ishii. The novelty this toy brought in the spotlight consisted of the fact that it could be programmed to move and there was no computer involved in the “dirty” business. Curious about the secret? Well, a set of kinetic memory motors.



All you had to do was to just be creative, to give birth to the most amazing creature or object ever and to move its limbs or other parts. The movements were to be automatically remembered and then reproduced. There was no need for batteries or charging. However, the toys are brought to life, being able to move just like you want them to move.

When the Topobo toys were first unveiled to the public, the project was still in its concept phase. The amazing news is that the company has managed to make this dream come true. This means that a limited number of sets are available from the official website of Topobo.



Now, let’s talk about figures. The 1,000 Piece Classroom Set, which includes 850 passives in 9 different shapes, 950 extra-strength connector pins, 16 independent (blue) actives, 8 queen (orange) actives, 16 connector cables (of various lengths), 8 power supplies and 8 invention booklets, is priced at $4,999. The 100 Piece Experimenter Set costs $499. They might deserve to become top selling toys, but this is too much, for God’s sake!

Anyway, if you have the means to purchase these Topobo creations, then you should hurry up, you rich guys!