Armatron was a robotic arm toy manufactured by Tandy and distributed by Radio Shack in the late 70s. The robotic arm was a bit like the sort of thing you see on a vehicle production line. Except smaller. And a bit less complicated.
There were a couple of levers at the back of the Armatron that let you control the arm so that you could get the arm to move around and pick up small objects. You could spend hours using Armatron to pick up your Rubik's Cube with the Armatron despite the fact that it was sat right in front of you and would have been easier to do it yourself. Armatron had six different degrees of movement including a twist of the jaw and rotation of the hand.
Later on the Armatron Mobile was released. This was basically the same thing but came with a remote control and could move around to pick things up instead of just picking up the things within its reach. Much more useful. This also included an "energy level" indicator, that was a countdown time and a number of different boxes and spheres that could be picked up by the Armatron Mobile. Mobile Armatron measured around 15-foot long, 9-inches wide and 15-inches high.
If only someone had figured out a way of combining Armatron and Big Trak...
Do You Remember Armatron?
Do You Remember Armatron?