I spent a lot time in Radio Shack when I was a child. My father is an electronic engineer. While my father was looking for capacitors and resistors in the toy department, I was browsing the toys. In 1984, I found the best toy from my childhood there: the Armatron robot arm.
COURTESY TAKARA TOMY.
Described on the box as a “robot arm to assist young masterminds in laboratory and scientific experiments,” this was a rare toy which lived up to its hype. This was a real robotic arm. The arm could be rotated to spin around the base, tilted up and down, bent at the “elbow”, rotated the “wrist”, and opened and closed the bright orange articulated hand using elegant chords. Anyone who has played with this toy can also recall the sound that it made. As soon as you slid your power button into the On position you heard a constant whirring noise of plastic gears rotating and twisting. The Armatron was not just a toy for kids. It was featured on a cover of the November/December issue Robotics Age magazine which noted that the toy was $31.95 (about $96 in today’s dollars) and had “capabilities normally found only in much higher-priced experimental arms.” It was all mechanical. I later found the patent drawings for the Armatron online and was amazed at how complex the schematics were. This design was either the work of a genius or a madman.
Man behind the arm
This toy’s story was important to me. I contacted the manufacturer, Tomy, which is now Takara Tomy and has been in Japan for more than 100 years. Hiroyuki Watanabe is a 69 year old engineer and toy designer who lives in Tokyo. He is retired, but worked for Tomy for 49-years, creating many of the classic handheld electronic toys from the ’80s. These include Blip, Digital Diamond (19459035), Digital Derby (19459035]and Missile Strike (19459035). Watanabe is listed on 44 patents (19459035) and was involved in the development of between 50 and 60 different products. Watanabe responded to emailed questions by video and his responses were then translated from Japanese.
I didn’t study engineering professionally for a long time. He told me that he enrolled at a Japanese technical high school, which trains technical engineers. “I actually [entered] worked in the electrical department,” he said.
Afterward, he worked at Komatsu Manufacturing–because, he said, he liked bulldozers. In 1974, he saw Tomy hiring and wanted to make toys. “I was told it was the No. “I decided [it was worth a look]because I was told it was the No. “I took the night train from Tohoku into Tokyo to take the job exam and that’s how i ended up joining the firm.”
Watanabe was inspired to create the Armatron by a newspaper clipping his boss had given him. “It was an image of [mechanical arm] with three fingers holding an egg. He recalled that he and his team thought, “This is the direction things are going in these days, let’s make it,” at first. Watanabe, as the leader of a small group, briefly switched his attention to another task. By the time he returned, the team already had a working prototype. It was different from the Armatron in its final form. “The hand was positioned to the side of the main body and could only move 90 degrees. The control panel had six positions for movement, which were also switched by six switches. Watanabe said, “I personally didn’t enjoy that.” He went back to his work.
Watanabe was inspired to make his breakthrough by the radio-controlled aircraft he used as a hobby. He told me that the radio remote control with dual joysticks allows four movements to be performed with two hands, but he thought if you twist the part, you could use six movements.
COURTESY HIROYUKI WATANABE
I had always wanted to design a system which could rotate 360 degrees. So, I thought of how to make it work,” he said.
Watanabe said that although he was listed as the Armatron’s primary inventor, a team effort was involved. A designer created the case and colors, as well as the logo, adding details to mimic features found on industrial robots at the time, like the rubber tubes.
In 1981, when the Armatron was first released, robotics engineers began contacting Watanabe. He said that he was hearing more from researchers in university laboratories, factories and companies who were making industrial robots than from toy store owners. The Armatron’s bold design and function made a lasting impression on many young children who would go on to pursue a career in robotics.
Adam Burrell was one of them, a mechanical engineer who had been building robots at Boston Dynamics for 15 years, including Petman and the YouTube-famous Atlas. He also built the dog-sized quadruped Spot.
Burrell was raised in New York City, just a few blocks from a Radio Shack. “If I were going to the subway, we would walk straight by Radio Shack. He says he would play with the toy, set the timer and do the challenges. I know it was just a toy but that was a real robotic device. The Armatron is what drew him to Radio Shack, and then ignited his lifelong passion for engineering. “I would roll my pennies to buy soldering tools and solder from Radio Shack.” He recalls that one of his office mates kept an Armatron on his desk, and it was broken. We took it apart and I saw the insides for the first time.
It had this fantastic mechanical drive train that could engage and disengage the motor in many different ways. It was fascinating to see how much it could do with just one motor. “It got me thinking about industrial robotic arms again.”
Eric Paulos is a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California in Berkeley. He recalls pestering his parents to buy him Armatron as a gift. He was successful in his lobbying.
It was endless exploration, picking things up and moving them around. Even just watching the movement was fascinating. It was fascinating to me. “I felt like I owned my very own little robot,” he recalled. I cherish this thing. I still have it today, and it still works.
PUBLIC DOMAIN.
Paulos builds robots today and teaches students how to make their own. He challenges his students to solve problems with constraints, such as using Play-Doh or cardboard to build. He believes that the limitations faced by Watanabe’s team forced them to be creative in their engineering. It’s easy to see the similarities between the Armatron, an impossibly analog machine, and highly advanced machines today that are learning to move in new ways powered by AI advances like computer vision and reinforced learning.
Paulos draws parallels between the problems that he solved as a child with his Armatron, and those that researchers still try to solve today: “What do you do when you pick up things and they are too heavy but you can pick it up if your approach is different? Or how do you grasp things? It’s still being researched using AI to find the best way to grab objects [a robot] can see in a bin, or in the real world.
Although AI is taking over the robotics world, it still needs engineers who are builders and tinkerers that can solve problems in the physical world.
COURTESY OF RADIOSHACKCATALOGS.COM
The Armatron encouraged kids to explore these analog mechanics, a reminder that not all breakthroughs happen on a computer screen. This hands-on curiosity is still alive. A new generation of Armatron fans is rediscovering it through online communities and DIY mods. YouTube has dozensArmatron videos, including one in which the arm was modified to run using steam power. Watanabe said, “I am very happy to see people that love mechanisms amazed.”
“I’m really happy that there are still people out there who love our products in this way.”
Jon Keegan writes about technology and AI and publishes Beautiful Public Data, a curated collection of government data sets (beautifulpublicdata.com).
