Michael Sng has invented a 3D-printed toy that's part tank, part Godzilla, and capable of shooting ping pong balls from a concealed cannon and walking all on its own.
At Tuesday's TED conference in Vancouver, Sng, a designer and toy maker, showed off the heavy-duty toy.
Called Codename Colossus, it's roughly the size of a infant and built using 435 individually 3D-printed parts. It's fully electronic, fully mechanical, and it's made to order.
It features a rotating turret, spinning Gatling guns, and fully functional windows and doors that conceal tiny operators inside.
Related story
"I wanted to push what was possible with 3D printing — and not just to look good on the outside," Sng says. "I wanted people to be able to explore."
Sng spent a year and a half developing the toy, devoting all his free time to coding, programming, and constructing the robot. The Singaporean designer perhaps best known for his line of stick-figure action figures says it became a labor of love.
"While I truly struggled," he says, "I never once was bored."
When Sng unveiled the toy to the online world via YouTube last year, he said he went to bed with one lone view — his own. When he woke up, there were more than 1,000. Today it stands at 100 times that.
Although Sng isn't selling the toy just yet, he does encourage people to drop him a line if they're interested in buying one someday.
(Our hand has been raised this whole time.)
