Robo me: An upcycling story!

Last christmas I finally turned 30 and what is an adequate gift for a woman who is known to be very serious? My dearest best friend xennis got it right and gave me this tin can robot kit.

It is a meaningful and funny gift for curious children or robo-me nerd like me. I enjoyed the process of assembling the robot a lot because it is a manual work but with a good portion of cognitive load. Assembling objects takes and fosters visual thinking and a good planning. I know one could study the instructions but I have to admit that I rather count myself to the eager group! The charm of ignoring instructions is besides having longer fun than intended :D that I challenge myself to reverse-engineer from a picture all the needed steps and execute them in the right order.

Have you heard of the IKEA effect? Short: it is the satisfying and proud feeling of your own creation regardless how flawed it might be compared to things you can buy off the shelf. You value it more because you invested more of your time or resources. This little project gave me exactly this feeling.