I couldn’t even begin to count the number of hours I spent as a kid playing with my Legos. Most of the time I was building spaceships of some sort, usually loosly based on the ones I’d seen in Star Wars. It crossed my mind a few times as to how tall of a tower I could build before it would topple over. I never really had enough bricks to make anything substantial, but apparently you can get quite high if you’ve got enough bricks.
To be exact, the Legoland Windsor theme park now has such a tower that stands a whopping 100 feet tall. Just how many tiny bricks did it take? Half a million. Somehow I think my childhood collection was just a bit smaller than that. For those wondering, this is the tallest Lego tower ever created, and was done in celebration of the toy’s 50th anniversary.
The Super Soaker has pretty much become the de facto standard when it comes to waterguns these days. The only downside is that like with all waterguns you eventually have to refill it, which can leave you vulnerable to soakings from the enemy. But instead of coming with a water reservoir tank, the Super Soaker Bottle Shot allows you to screw on a standard plastic bottle instead. In fact it can even accommodate a 2 liter pop bottle allowing you to reuse them as back up liquid ammunition for when you’re in the heat of battle.
The downside is that the Super Soaker Bottle Shot only works on a pump by pump basis. So every time you pump the handle, it fires a 20 foot stream of water. The traditional Super Soaker allows you to fill the reservoir with air, which in turn creates a pressurized blast of water. However I’m sure that Hasbro (or at least their legal team) was worried about the risk of a regular plastic bottle simply blowing up if it was over pressurized. But at just $7.99, this one’s a must have for the Summer time.
Here’s a simple weekend project for anyone who’s ever dreamt of piloting a blimp, but miserably failed out of Goodyear University. You can easily build your own miniature version and all you need is some tape, a few binder clips, 2 24 inch dowels, 2 miniature RC helicopters and a helium balloon that’s large enough to keep the rest of the materials afloat. (And of course enough helium to fill said balloon.) The most expensive part of the build is the RC helicopters, but these days you can get a couple of the PicooZ or AirHog varieties for under $60. And what’s even better is that the project doesn’t require you to dismantle or destroy the helicopters in any way.
Basically the dowels are attached to the underside of the balloon with the choppers mounted on each end serving as propulsion. Since binder clips and tape are used to hold it all together, when the balloon inevitably runs out of helium you can easily disassemble it and swap in a new one. When it comes to controlling the blimp you need to use both remotes at the same time, but you only need to move one joystick on each which apparently makes it feel like steering a flying tank. As an added bonus the blimp is a lot easier to fly than the helicopters themselves, and crashing it into the wall or a piece of furniture probably won’t cause that much damage.
The NeoCube may not have any practical purpose, but I want one anyway. Really, really badly. The NeoCube is only incidentally a cube, since it’s made of 216 spherical magnets that you can pull apart and reattach in whatever design you feel like. Looks like you can even make jewelry out of it, and according to the website, it’s also a “dual hemisphere brain stimulator.” Hard to go wrong with that, and it’s hard to go wrong with the price, too: a mere $40.
Even though the Indiana Jones films were Lucasfilm productions, I don’t remember the original 3 featuring as extensive a marketing or product tie-in push as the Star Wars films did. But it seems they’re going to make up for that with the 4th Indiana Jones film that’s set to hit theaters in less than a month. In the same way that Star Wars fans can buy toy replicas of nearly every single lightsaber seen in those movies, Indiana Jones fans can now get themselves a toy version of Indy’s most famous accessory. (No, not his hat.)
This three foot soft whip features a plastic handle that not only plays authentic whip-cracking sound effects as you swing it around, but also the well-known Indiana Jones theme music. (aka The Raiders March) There’s a switch on the handle for turning the sounds on and off, and it even features a carrying strap for attaching it to your belt so it’s always close at hand. I’m sure there’ll also be actual whip replicas available for sale at some point, but this version is probably a lot safer if you’ve never used a whip before.
I’m really enjoying this trend of lightweight, easy-to-fly RC planes and helicopters. Not only can they be enjoyed indoors where you don’t have to deal with the wind, but they can easily survive those inevitable crashes that happen every few minutes. The latest addition to the fleet is this RC ‘Jump Jet’ which can take off and land vertically like a helicopter, but also fly around the room like a plane. Think of it as a slightly cheaper, quieter and easier to fly version of the Harrier Jump Jet.
Like with most of the indoor RC aircraft available today, the Jump Jet itself uses a small rechargeable battery to keep it as light as possible, while the remote itself runs off 3 AAA batteries. I’ve included a video of the craft taking off and flying after the jump, and to be perfectly honest it really just looks like a 4-bladed helicopter that’s been adorned with small wings and a tail to make it look like a plane. There’s no control surfaces that I can see, and this thing would have to be moving pretty quickly through the air to generate any kind of lift with those wings. However, that doesn’t make it look any less fun.
It would take a truly unique and mind-blowing building toy to topple the LEGO empire, but instead of trying to replace those famous plastic bricks, the makers of UberStix have decided to just play nice with them. While you can happily use UberStix on their own, the pieces are compatible with LEGO, K’nex, Erector and other well-established building sets on the market. From what I can tell, the UberStix pieces closely resemble K’nex, and while they can be used for building bridges and other immobile structures, they’re apparently even better when used to build things with motion and movement. The fact that the product shots show a pistol in action will probably guarantee at least a few sales.
ThinkGeek is currently selling 2 UberStix sets. The Building Set includes 450 UberStix pieces, a 40 page ‘Basics’ book and instructions for building 5 different projects. It will set you back $39.99. There’s also the UberPult Set which includes 181 UberStix pieces, the 40 page ‘Basics’ book and instructions for building the UberPult itself. It’s a bit cheaper at $19.99.
The Slip N’ Slide brought most of the fun of a waterslide to every kid’s backyard. And while the experience wasn’t exactly like you’d get at a waterpark, at least you didn’t have to stand in line for hours on end. The Banzai Skimboard Surfer hopes to do the same for surfing, allowing you to enjoy the sport in your backyard without the risk of sharks, drowning or breaking your neck. (Well at least the first two.)
Just connect a garden hose and when the bumpers along the sides are filled they’ll start spraying water into the inner reservoir. Once that’s filled, you’ll be able to skim along the specially designed surface using the included pro-quality (probably not) wooden surfboard. You can find it at Wal-Mart for $49.88.
Where I live the weather has gone directly from Winter to Summer, and while I don’t particularly miss the snow, I do miss the in-between, light jacket conditions of Spring. But on the plus side, the return of Summer means you can dig out all the outdoor toys you had to put away when the weather got cold. This RC Speed Boat Challenge is kind of like the slot car tracks you had as a kid. (Or still play with.) But instead of a plastic groove to keep the vehicle on course, this one uses a large inflatable pool complete with lanes and various obstacles.
The inflatable track includes 2 RC speed boats that can be wirelessly controlled from a distance of up to 50 feet. And while technically the RC Speed Boat Challenge can be used indoors, while I was growing up there was a strict ‘no water toys in the house’ rule which would have kept something like this in the backyard.
You can find it at Drinkstuff.com come May 2 for about $70.
I have no problem with kids playing video games, as long as they spend part of their days doing something more creative so their imaginations don’t atrophy. Besides building toys and stuff like Lite Brite, I also remember having a Muppets themed Colorforms set when I was a kid. While I don’t think the Muppets are as popular as they were in the 80’s, I do think today’s kids would still enjoy Colorforms, even though they seem pretty hard to come by these days.
Thankfully as part of MoMA’s Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today exhibition, the MoMA Store is now selling an exact replica of the original Colorforms set from 1951. The kit includes 350 brightly colored vinyl shapes that will stick to any glossy surface, or as I recall, to each other. At $35 this replica Colorforms set isn’t exactly cheap, but finding all the little pieces strewn across your house? Priceless.
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By Andrew Liszewski
