I’m in awe with Japanese inventions. Only the minds of Japanese scientists, inventors, producers, manufacturers can possibly concoct the silliest contraptions and plethora of outrageous gadgets the world has ever seen and what fascinates me is that they’re not even trying. That being said, witness the Petit-Tomatan, a piggybacking small red robot that feeds you…tomatoes, while you run. Supposedly this helps increase your antioxidants in your body. Kagome, a Japanese juice vendor decided one day that a publicity stunt is needed to boost sales and so teamed-up with mechanical artist Maywa Denki to build this goofy-looking robot dwarf. This is more than marketing however, since the Tomato-Head robot (I decided to call it that) is perfectly functional and more than happy to lash out tomatoes in a fray. There are two versions of the robot, the Tomatan and Petit-Tomatan (lighter version), the latter weighing just 3 kg and features a back-worn tomato holster for dispensing the red nutrient.
I wonder can it be programmed to feed you ice-cream cones or apples. How about bottles of water? Meant to be used like a backpack, the Mr. Tomato-Head robot weighs 8kg (18 pounds) and features a tomato-shaped head with a mouth that opens when there’s need for dispensing tomatoes into circular metal arms that point downwards over a person’s mouth to feed tomatoes. Why is this even created? According to Kagome which is a Japanese supplier of tomato juice and ketchup, the participants at the Tokyo marathon were in great need for something like this, and for them a robot like Tomato-Head was built. So really why tomatoes? They seem to have many nutritious properties that work against fatigue. The tomato juice vendor chose well-known artistic studio Maywa Denki to work on the silly robot. And since it’s a studio that makes unusual musical instruments, the results are quite to the point.