His name is PLEN and he’s an Android powered robot, well hobby desk toy, that has got to be about the geekiest gadget you could ever own and the chances are you probably won’t. Why?
Well considering he is nothing more than a novelty really, it’s probably out of most people’s budget at $3000 USD a go but even if you could afford it, you’d have to get in there pretty quick as only fifty of them have been made.
There’s hope though, more will be produced depending on how well these initial ones sell.
Anyway, despite the pricey price tag PLEN has already been selling remarkably well in Japan, a country that we know loves its gadgets and gizmos.
So what do we know about PLEN?
Well he is produced by Akazawa in Japan. He is a 9 inch tall droid that is powered by a 32 bit ARM7 CPU at 33 MHz. The battery is Nickel hydrogen 6V-950mA
PLEN comes as an assembly pack but is apparently easy to put together using a cross point screwdriver.
He can be controlled using your laptop, desktop or Android mobile phone via Bluetooth using a specially designed Android application which allows you to program your own motions.
He has 18 degrees of freedom (or movable joints) and entertains you by roller skating, which he can do both forwards and backwards, by performing stunts, dancing, walking, kicking and clapping and more.
He will even pick himself up when he falls down although he does have gyro sensors for motion stability.
You can check out the Plen website for more info which is in Japanese and English. There it says “more than 20 adorable motions are pre-installed”.
“After easy step by step setup, PLEN can be easily controlled. Just snap on his roller skates, and he’ll keep you entertained for hours”.
Some small print at the bottom reminds you that “for smooth skating, PLEN prefers horizontal hard surfaced floor and/or desk”. Well I didn’t expect it to start climbing walls or anything like that.
You’ve gotta love him, apart from the smooth moves PLEN is one cool gadget and there’s just something geekily amusing about an Android powered by Android don’t you think?
If you really must buy PLEN then head over to audiocubes as they can organise that for you, shipment time is about 3 to 4 weeks.
