Background
Jason Hilbourne, a product design engineer from Portland, is responsible for designing a new line of plush robots called the Bunk Bots. After witnessing his two boys trying to sleep next to their pointy plastic robots, Jason decided to develop a plush robot toy soft enough to cuddle with, but cool enough to play with. (They're called Bunk Bots, because his boys slept in bunk beds)
The Bunk Bots come available in two different color variants (light gray and dark gray) that signify whether they are good or bad.
Good Robots:
These robots got together one day after lunch and decided to escape from the huge factory. Okay? Now they just want to hang out in your room and play with your stuff.
Bad Robots:
Robots with red eyes are up to no good, and they sort of want to take over the world. But before they do, they want to hang out in your room and play with your stuff.
Packaging
The Bunk Bots are not packaged in a bag or box, but each one does include a tag. The tag includes the name of the character as well as one of the stories above and a character-specific bio. There’s also a 3D rendering of the character.
The Figures
Each Bunk Bot measures approximately 8” in height and is made of soft, fleece-like fabric. There are a total of 10 different characters, using 5 different designs. Each design is available as a good robot as well as a bad robot. The difference between the two is that good robots are light gray and have whites eyes with black dots, while the bad robots are darker gray and have solid red eyes.
All of the figures vary by the position of their eyes, their teeth and their hands. The names of the characters (with the position of their eyes) are as follows:
Good Robots:
Pinch (one left), Stepper (two), Servo (one right), Otto (none) and Tracks (one middle)
Bad Robots:
Night-vision Pinch (one left), Commando Stepper (two), Ninja Servo (one right), X-ray Otto (none) and Stealth Tracks (one middle)
Our Opinion
Toy robots are always a popular pick for little kids. Who didn’t have an Alphie (or know someone who did) as a youngster? Well, with the Bunk Bots, Jason Hilbourne has transformed a figure that’s normal medium is plastic or metal into a soft and cuddly plush.
The soft, fleece-like plush makes each Bunk Bot appealing to kids, while the cool, simplistic design will satisfy any collector. With ten different characters, there should be one design that appeals to everyone.
Quality-wise, all of the eyes and mouths are all embroidered and of the ten plushies we looked at, there were no obvious stitching issues. A number of the patterns are complex, such as Otto, who has a drill. I did notice that several of the lighter (good) robots had slightly varying shades of gray, although they were all light gray. *This is supposed to be the case. All of the "good" robots have slightly different Pantone shades.*
Our favorite designs are as follows: Stepper, Pinch, Tracks, Servo and Otto. Since the “bad versions” are the same design with a darker shade of gray and red eyes, we’ll just group them all together.
Overall, this is a fun line. And with a price point between $9 and $12 per plush, there’s no reason not to add one of these to your plush collection.
You can pick one up at the following:
Think Geek: $8.99 (Stepper & Ninja Servo)
Posh Online: $12.00 (All except Ninja Servo)
Bunk Bots Grades:
Quality: 8/10
Stitching: 8/10
Tag Design: 8/10
Softness: 9/10
Hype: 6/10
Fun Factor: 9/10
Value: 9/10
Stepper: 9.1/10
Pinch: 8.9/10
Tracks: 8.7/10
Servo: 8.6/10
Otto: 8.2/10
Have this figure? What do you rate it?
