Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

For some reason I find all books and toys designed to teach kids about potty training hilarious. And that definitely includes the Potty Monkey. It’s a 15-inch tall stuffed monkey that comes complete with a pair of diapers, a pair of underwear and of course, a toilet. An electronic timer buried somewhere in his body can be set at intervals of 30 or 90 minutes, and when the clock runs out, the monkey will tell you he needs to go potty. When you place him on his toilet he’ll say various things about how much better he feels, and will even go as far as to sing a Weird Al-like version of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, except his version is about bowel movements. But what happens if you ignore his pleas?

But let’s back up and suppose you DON’T put him on the potty when he asks. The longer you ignore him, the more he pleads. “I really need to go potty! Let’s go potty!!” And if you are callous enough to ignore him again, he says, “Hey, take me to the potty now or I’ll have an accident!” And if you wait much longer, “Oh no! I had an accident! Please take me to the potty next time.”

So there you go. Normally I would find a stuffed monkey that needs to go to the bathroom every half-hour unappealing. But he kind of reminds me of the short-lived Domino’s Pizza mascot Bad Andy who disappeared well before his time. We all miss you Andy…

You can find the Potty Monkey at Stupid.com for $29.99.

[ Potty Monkey ] VIA [ Nerd Approved ]

By Andrew Liszewski

If you’ve ever been fascinated enough with ants to want to stare at them all day, you may have considered picking up an art farm. But what if you happen to also have a soul? And feel bad about trapping those ants in your see-through prison? Enter the Ants Life Studio from Bandai, which is kind of like the next generation of their Tamagotchi cash cow.

Instead of real ants, the Ants Life Studio presents a small colony of virtual ants who go about their daily lives of digging virtual tunnels, collecting virtual food and fending off attacks from virtual enemies. The monochrome LCD display features an electroluminescent backlight allowing you to continue your obsession with the ant’s lives well into the night, and it also includes a clock and calendar function for keeping track of what you actually should have been doing all day long.

It’s currently only available in Japan, but you can get it from Japan Trend Shop for $99.

[ Ants Life Studio - Virtual Ant Farm ]

By Andrew Liszewski

When I was a kid I was always partial to building toys like LEGO, Construx, Ramagon, K’nex, Pipeworks and even my friend’s Capsela sets. While I’m sure they helped foster my imagination, I liked the flexibility of being able to build whatever I wanted. And while I’m not sure if it’s the best choice for young kids, this Hydrodynamic Building Set can be reconfigured into everything from a water treatment plant, to a distillation plant to even an ice cream factory. I mean what kid wouldn’t love to spend the afternoon with their very own water treatment plant!

The set includes working tanks, pipes and valves that are all powered by an electric pump. All you need to supply is the water, and a bit of patience as you tweak the valves to produce the perfect flow. When fully constructed the working models look like they belong in a mad scientist’s laboratory, but they’ll probably guarantee you at least a B if you have a science fair coming up. At the least, your display will look a lot cooler than all those paper mache volcanoes.

You can find it at the Discovery Channel Store for $79.95.

[ Hydrodynamic Deluxe Building Set ] VIA [ GadgetGrid ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I’m pretty sure there aren’t too many kids who dream about growing up to be storm chasers, but this Tornado Maker kit might at least get them interested in it. In addition to a 35 page educational book, the kit comes with the Tornado Maker itself which shows how funnel clouds actually form.

There’s a spin control dial which can be used to adjust the funnel cloud’s ranking on the Fujita scale, taking it from an F1 category storm strong enough to uproot trees all the way to an F5 storm which can level a home. Unfortunately there’s no setting for the super-rare F6 tornado whose 320+ mph winds can turn a car into a missile. That’s where the real fun starts! The Tornado Maker even includes lightning and thunder effects, but unless it has a speaker that can reproduce the sound of a freight train, I don’t think it can accurately recreate the tornado experience.

You can find it at What on Earth for just $14.98.

[ Tornado Maker ] VIA [ bookofjoe ]

By Andrew Liszewski

If you’re worried about taking your kids outside at night to stargaze because of the risk of asteroids, falling satellites and other space debris, you can now enjoy a considerably less awesome experience indoors. The Discovery Ultimate Star Planetarium will project 88 constellations and 12 celestial objects including the 8 planets, that outcast Pluto and its moon, Charon.

A backlit navigational screen allows you to search a database of over 600 star facts and myths, while an interactive talking computer will take you through a variety of astronomy tours and settings. It uses a couple of “super bright bulbs” to project over 600 dots stars and even has a one-hour timer so your kids can fall asleep under the constellations.

You can find it at the Discovery Channel online store for $79.95.

[ Discovery Ultimate Star Planetarium ] VIA [ GadgetMania ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Popular Mechanics has published a list of 25 skills that every man should know, and each one includes a mini-tutorial complete with easy to follow graphics and photos where applicable. And given it’s Popular Mechanics you might think they’re all about how to weld, or rebuild your transmission, but thankfully that’s not the case. The list actually includes tutorials covering a wide range of useful skills like patching a radiator hose, retouching digital photos, navigating with a map and compass and even extending your wireless network.

In fact I’m not even sure why Popular Mechanics feels these are skills that only men should know. Do they plan on releasing a similar list for women that covers skills like churning butter, quilting or even getting those pesky stains out? Hopefully they remembered to change their clocks from 1908 to 2008 yesterday.

There are a few other skills I wish they had covered though. Like how to find interesting content to write about during a slow, pre-major-trade-show news week. Oh, and how to wrestle a bear. You’d be surprised how often that comes up during an average week for me.

[ Popular Mechanics - 25 Skills Every Man Should Know ]

By Andrew Liszewski

If you think the Discovery Channel is the best place to learn how beetles battle for insect supremacy, you’d be wrong. Why just watch them fight when you can actually be in control with these RC Battle Beetles from Sega-toys.

Using the dual channel remote you can move your beetle in any direction and even control one of the front appendages that can be used to flip your opponent. In between matches, or during the off season you can also use an included training target to keep your fighter in peak condition. Of course a quick recharge using the remote won’t hurt either.

The Battle Beetles are available from Toys.Brando.com.hk for $44.50 each, and come in a Brown Bot, Hercules Bot or Giraffe Stag-Beetle Bot versions.

[ Rechargeable R/C Beetle Battle ] VIA [ YoKiddo! ]

By Andrew Liszewski

With this unique globe you can spend your days plotting how you’ll one day take over the entire world, and then spend your nights plotting how you’ll eventually take over the whole galaxy!

In the daytime you see a standard 1:60,000,000th scale globe complete with the world’s capitals, cities, political boundaries and natural features. But at night a light sensor causes the globe to light up internally, revealing a brightly illuminated map of the night sky including 88 constellations all labeled with their common names.

The Glow Globe as it’s called is available from I Want One Of Those for about $90.

[ Glowing Globe ] VIA [ GeekAlerts ]

By Andrew Liszewski

Even with laptops and PDAs that are almost as powerful as desktop computers, there still seems to be a market for dedicated graphing calculators. Texas Instruments has been a leader in this field for quite a long time now, and continues to innovate with their new TI-Nspire line.

The most obvious improvement is a new keypad that includes a full alphanumeric layout using smaller in-between keys, basically like the Fastap system used on cellphones. But the TI-Nspire also includes a snap-in keypad based on the older TI-84/83 Plus calculators, which I assume is a university standard and allows you to follow along with professors still using the old version. Besides this backwards compatibility and the upgraded keypad, the TI-Nspire includes other new features like the ability to ‘grab and move’ points or lines on a graph while seeing the effects in real time, as well as a computer-like file system for saving and loading your work.

The TI-Nspire (including the snap in keypad) will set you back $138. Not exactly cheap, but a bargain compared to all those textbooks you’re supposed to photocopy buy.

[ Texas Instruments TI-Nspire ] VIA [ Popular Science ]