This incredible Turkish company is building actual real-life Transformers
Warning: it’s not clear whether they’re Decepticons or Autobots
Man the lifeboats. The machines are finally rising. And it’s all thanks to 12 engineers from Letvision, a Turkish manufacturing company who have completed a real-life transformer after an eight-month build.
The Turkish transformer can be controlled (for the moment) by remote control, meaning it can park at the flick of a few switches before converting into a rather stiff-looking robot.
Letvision say you can’t actually drive the ‘Letron’ from the inside, nor does the transformer walk when it's stood up. However, the car comes with wifi compatibility and ‘voice interaction’ software, so that's something.
The company are developing the machine's capabilities, as well as a new family of transformers – news they broke accompanied by some terrifying music.
Somebody get Shia LaBeouf on the line, just in case this gets out of control.
Authors
Thomas is Digital editor at BBC Science Focus. Writing about everything from cosmology to anthropology, he specialises in the latest psychology, health and neuroscience discoveries. Thomas has a Masters degree (distinction) in Magazine Journalism from the University of Sheffield and has written for Men’s Health, Vice and Radio Times. He has been shortlisted as the New Digital Talent of the Year at the national magazine Professional Publishers Association (PPA) awards. Also working in academia, Thomas has lectured on the topic of journalism to undergraduate and postgraduate students at The University of Sheffield.