In 2001, Eaglemoss Publications (they appeared to stop trading in 2016) created a fortnightly magazin about building your own ‘real’ robot. This would go on to be 96 issues, and see each issue add parts to the robot. You would be given a specific set of components that might be an electrical sensor, a battery harness, or a panel for the robot’s casing. Over the course of these, there would be two robots, the first was call Cybot, and the second, TOM. There was also the chance to build a small football like object for the Cybot to play with. The bag you see in the image is full of these magazines and components, but sadly, after sorting through them, there is about 70% of the full set. I originally bought it for the interest, alone, but also liked the idea of the components being added to my creative stash. There was a set of CD-ROM discs, of which I have four of them. You can get these from the Internet Archive, though!
I would like to look further into this, and look at making a post about what the magazines were like and how the builds faired for the average reader. I have set aside, what I believe to be, the full set of the football like components. I think it will make for an interesting part two of this post. I only paid £5 for this whole bag, and you can’t miss the value of the bits for use on other projects. You can find peoples recounts of this set, online, but the best is the archived website on The Wayback Machine. Let’s see what I can find, as I delve deeper into the Real Robot offerings! Just a note: If you donate things to charity, please check that your name and address isn’t in the stuff you are handing over. I have destroyed what was left in this bag of the previous owner’s details.
