On display at the Design Engineering and Manufacturing Solutions Expo in Tokyo, this pen assembly machine from Keyence is an impressive example of robotic multi-tasking and dexterity – albeit perhaps not that practical. So if you happen to work on a pen assembly line, you might now be redundant thanks to this robot. Or maybe not...

It takes a little over two minutes for one robot to put together a single pen, which is not really very quick. I'm pretty confident that I could pull off this trick just as fast.

But what is impressive is that the robot is versatile enough to complete all the required steps on its own, rather than relying on a division of labor among multiple specialized robots.

There are a wide variety of motions that comprise this task, and it's remarkable that this robot can perform them all in such a short time. This might not be the most efficient way to put together a single pen, but this is such a complex demonstration of robotic dexterity that we thought the video here.

Have a look below to witness the entire pen-assembly process from start to finish.

Keyence (Japanese)