I’m not what one might deem a “swag guy.” I’ve known plenty over the years — video game and comics shows are a particular hot bed. People beg for extra t-shirts, fidget spinners and anything else they can get their hands on. You see them wandering the halls of convention centers, tote bags spilling over with promotional items.
Image Credits: Brian Heater
I get it. I like free stuff, too. As a rule, however, if I do end up with some cheap promotional thing, I’ll give it away more often than not. I live in a one-bedroom in New York, where the Collyer Brothers and “Grey Gardens” loom large. This, however, is my one exception at the moment. I currently have a small collection of robot stress balls (above). It’s a modest collection at three — Amazon, Hai and Locus — but there’s something about a tiny, colorful take on a big industrial robot that warms my heart.
But as robot swag goes it’s hard to beat these two LEGO kits I put together over lunch today. If there’s a better way to get someone to buy a very expensive robot (Spot, for instance, is a cool $75,000), I haven’t seen it. Boston Dynamics has been using these to help promote Spot (46 pieces) and Stretch (44 pieces), but good luck getting a set if you’re not currently in the market for an industrial robot (I might be, but again, small apartment).
For everyone else, there are a couple of unofficial Boston Dynamics-inspired projects over on the LEGO site to check out, including this 1:4 scale motorized version of Spot.
