A few months before I started kindergarten, my dad was stationed to Germany, and during our time there my aunt traveled from Japan for a visit. She and my mom took a week-long trip to Paris together to take in the sights, and they returned with assorted souvenirs for the family, including my first ever tin robot as a gift from my aunt – a Horikawa Rotate-o-Matic Super Astronaut from Japan.
Even as a six-year old, the humor of receiving a Japanese robot as a memento of France wasn’t lost on me, but I was thrilled nonetheless. I inserted 2 D-cell batteries and set it loose on the kitchen floor: the noisy motor spun up, and Super Astronaut took its first steps, its arms swinging in sync with the legs. After a few seconds it stopped, and the doors on its chest opened, revealing two lasers that flashed while the torso rotated 360 degrees. After that the doors closed, and Super Astronaut resumed its walk before repeating this cycle again and again. I was mesmerized.
I couldn’t have known at the time that this event would mark the start of my lifelong infatuation with tin robots; I was captivated by their technical sophistication and inspiring design, all for the purpose of entertainment. But perhaps more than anything, to me they represented an idealistic vision of our future beyond anything I had imagined before.