"Realistic" alternative to Build Robot?

Pagan priest said:

And now, back to the original question of the post (sort of). I am planning a 1930's era pulp modern... robots just don't fit. If it were going to run something in the here and now, I'd leave the build robots in place (OK, maybe I'd allow an alternative if the player really wanted one...). Any good suggestions for an alternative?

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I've had similar thoughts -- building a robot is neat, but it's a little too...specific for my tastes. I'd prefer to treat the Techie as a cross between Reed Richards and McGyver, myself.

I don't have the book in front of me, and can't get too specific with the rule mechanics, but I want to allow a Techie to:

Jury-rig a one shot weapon/device out of scrounged materials. Making a bazooka out of a car muffler, for example, or rigging a smoke bomb out of household chemicals.

Create new inventions. Build a jet pack, for instance. I'd use this in place of the Robot building (especially for a Pulp campaign), and extrapolate the robot creation rules into something workable. Shouldn't be all that difficult to do, really. Let him create an electric gun, or nightvision goggles, or something like that -- the kind of stuff that Doc Savage would create.

Rolzup

Again, have you looked at the Adventure D20 mini game in dungeon? It's got a class which pretty much covers exactly what you want. You'd just need to tweak it to make it an advanced class instead of a basic one.