These are the days of remote-controlled-state-of-the-art toys. This case is especially true with toy robots. The Robosapien is a good example of how complex toy robots have become. The Robosapien can walk, talk, navigate obstacles and pick up objects all at the touch of a button or even by voice commands. It runs on batteries and has potential for a lot of fun. A long time ago, toy robots were made of tin. Complexity was way simpler but the fun factor is still the same. After all, a toy needs to provide you with hours of fun be it a tin toy or an electronic toy.



Tin toy robots were generally built with squarish parts. They normally come with a square tin head with some robotic feature or another. The robot bodies were also square or rectangular. I guess this is because mass producing square shaped tin parts were simpler and helped keep the cost down. As production methods improved, tin toy robots of various shapes and sizes started to hit the shelves. Rounded shapes started to become common and more complex functions for a tin toy became the norm.

The simplest tin toy robots were basically a tin cube with movable appendages bolted on. The attraction came from the painted features of the tin toy. Wound up springs and some simple gearing gave other tin toy robots limited mobility. You just needed to wind up the toy and set it on the ground. The tin robot would walk in a straight line most of the time. It did not matter that most robots tend to veer a little to one side because suddenly, you are the master of a little tin Frankenstein monster!

Manufacturers became more and more creative over time. As a result, more nifty features were added onto tin toy robots. There were robots that would walk after being wound up and then pause for a short while to emit sparks from their mouths. Some tin toy robots had multi-colored gears mounted on the front panel of their tin bodies that would rotate while the tin robot was in motion.

Tin toy robots could also take a fair amount of abuse. Rough play will result in scratches and dents but the tin bodies offer a decent enough protection for the tin robots to keep on functioning. Nowadays, tin toy robots are a collectors item and can fetch a good price on the tin toy collectors market.