The Heathkit company of Benton Harbor, Michigan was in business for decades as a manufacturer of electronics kits. I can remember reading their catalog back in the late 1960s and wanting to order one of everything. In later years they also had a number of computer kits including the only Digital PDP-11 clone kit available for enthusiasts.
Can you guess what their most popular kit was? (It still has a somewhat active user group today.)
[dramatic pause]
It was the HERO robot. The kit appeared in a number of forms and had various accessories.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HERO_%28robot%29
And:
http://www.hero2000robots.com/index2.html
And:
http://www.robotswanted.com/robotgallery/heathkit/
And:
http://hero.dsavage.net/