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Tag Archives: Toys

Our Childhood Come To Life: Stunt Drivers Push Real Cars Through Giant Loopty-Loop

By David Ponce on 07/03/12 • 1 Comment

By David Ponce

So, last weekend, something awesome happened: two stunt drivers successfully launched a pair of cars through a 60 foot tall full loop during the X Games in LA. The track was called the Team Hot Wheels Double Loop Dare. Green driver Greg Tracy and yellow driver Tanner Faust pushed their cars to 52 mph and were subjected to 7 Gs while performing the stunt. It did go well, however, and was even capped with a small jump at the end. You can watch all the action in the video below.

This was all marketing however (when is it not?): Hot Wheels was promoting their new track, the… Team Hot Wheels Double Loop Dare Snare Stunt Set. A $22 toy.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ Technabob ]

Summer Is Best Enjoyed By Swinging Into Water

By David Ponce on 05/30/12 • Leave a comment!

By David Ponce

With summer comes all kind of water activities. But you’re limited by what your environment gives you. Much as you’d like to swing from a long rope and splash into a cool body of water in a hot day, you won’t be able to if this body of water isn’t lined with a bunch of obliging trees. Unless you bring this contraption along. It’s a 13 1/2′ tall Floating Rope Swing that’s made from 28 oz. marine-grade, reinforced PVC. The large horseshoe shaped base is anchored solidly to the lake bottom via three anchor points, and should be able to support swingers up to 250lbs. Maybe even more interestingly, if you fail at life often, there’s a chance you’d have gotten hurt from a regular lakeside rope swing; hitting trees and rocks on your way down has a way of doing that. None of this with the Floating Rope Swing.

Well, one thing will be hurting: your bank account. You can buy yours at Hammacher Schlemmer for a cool $3,800.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ GearPatrol ]

Dude Makes Custom-Painted Minifig Babies

By David Ponce on 05/18/12 • 1 Comment

By David Ponce

Custom painted toys are nothing new under the sun. Very often however the paint chips off or you’re stuck with bad quality stickers. We’re told the guys at CitizenBrick offer higher quality items. More importantly, they offer some neat looking items, such as the baby minifigs you see in the picture above. Because, hey, if there aren’t babies, then why are there so many minifigs around? At $1 a pop, you better hope they’re good quality.

Hit the jump for a bunch more pictures of other custom painted LEGO figurines.

… Continue Reading

This Air Guitar Has Frickin’ Lasers

By David Ponce on 05/18/12 • Leave a comment!

By David Ponce

There are those that learn guitar and there are those that play it. Or at least pretend to play it. Or at the very least make an attempt to appear to play it… We’re not sure where the air guitarists fall, although if they buy the above tool they will be able to have at least a little bit of sound to accompany them. Granted, the point of air guitar playing is to appear to play along with a song that’s already playing so our analogy is off the mark somewhat. But you’ll still technically be playing with air as you strum the infrared laser coming out of this toy with one hand, and depress buttons with the other, belting random tunes in free play mode. And guess what, it even comes pre-loaded with ten songs so that you can play along with music if you want to, and you’re not just strumming cords willy-nilly. Some of these songs include: Are You Gonna Be My Girl (Jet), Walk This Way (Aerosmith), Smoke on the Water (Deep Purple), and Let It Be (The Beatles). There’s a little speaker if you want your friends to hear you plain, or a headphone jack if you wish to be merciful.

That’s a lot of fun for $20.

[ Product Page (affiliate link) ] VIA [ 7Gadgets ]

They’re Bringing The Furby Back, And It Could Be All Kinds Of High Tech

By David Ponce on 05/16/12 • Leave a comment!

By David Ponce

Back in 1998 the world went a little apeturd over the Furby. While Amazon was still just getting off the ground and didn’t much suffer from the craze, brick and mortar stores were crawling under the demand. The £24 ($40 USD in 1998 dollars and $56 today) could be resold for as much as three times its price. It’s now a collector’s item and the company that made it, Tiger Electronics, seems to be planning on releasing a new version for the Holidays 2012. There isn’t much information on it aside from the picture you see above.

Toy expert Peter Jenkinson of www.toyology.com said: ‘The image suggests that the moving facial parts have been entirely replaced by an LCD screen. ‘This will prompt lots of talk, not all of it intelligible, on Furby forums.’

Other “experts” are predicting Wifi connectivity and only Furby-to-Furby interaction. Truth is, no one really knows. And no one is sure if the little fur balls will be able to recapture the insanity of their first arrival.

[ DailyMail ] VIA [ UberGizmo ]

PEW! PEW! Here’s A Mini Cannon For The Office

By David Ponce on 05/11/12 • Leave a comment!

By David Ponce

Or wherever, really. Just don’t point it at people. It’s a tiny cannon that uses black powder and .177″ BBs, and is able to fire them up to 100 yards. That’s like, almost 100 meters. They are precision machined and at close range are able to inflict some pretty decent damage, like breaking glasses or piercing Coke cans. Oh, and they’re loud too. So, yeah, don’t be an idiot with them. You have to provide your own BBs and black powder, but the cannon itself is only $29 and comes in a variety of colours.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ The Gadgeteer ]

Helium Filled Balls Bounce Over 75 Feet

By David Ponce on 05/11/12 • Leave a comment!

By David Ponce

The SkyBall is a toy that consists of a 4 inch ball filled with Helium. The fact that it’s got a buoyant gas within means that it doesn’t behave like a regular bouncy ball, instead bouncing up to 75 feet just by being thrown on the ground. The gas is sealed within the plastic body of the ball and the balance between the weight of the plastic vs. the volume of gas inside means that it gets just enough lift to produce fantastic bounces, but not enough for it to wander off into the sunset. Reviews are raving, incidentally.

You get two for $20.

[ Product Page ] VIA [ BookOfJoe ]

Back To The Future LEGO Could Very Well Become Reality

By David Ponce on 04/30/12 • Leave a comment!

By David Ponce

So it turns out that LEGO has this thing called LEGO Cuusoo, which is kind of a digital suggestion box. You can create your own designs of LEGO sets that you’d like to see, and if they get at least 10,000 votes, the company will seriously look at it and potentially make it. The above Back To The Future set has reached that milestone, so there’s a pretty decent chance it’ll become a real product. Not everything gets approved however. A Shaun Of The Dead design that had reached the threshold was vetoed by the company on the grounds that it was too violent a movie for its target market of young kids. But the BTTF concept you see above should not run into the same problem. The set

includes all the pieces to make three versions of the DeLorean, one for each movie, along with the required props and minifigs of Doc Brown and Marty McFly. It will require you to build your own Lego Hill Valley .

We can’t imagine anything derailing this project, other than not being able to secure the rights maybe. So it should only be a matter of time until we update you with availability information.

[ LEGO Cuusoo ] VIA [ Gizmodo ]

LEGO Darth Vader Lamp

By David Ponce on 04/23/12 • Leave a comment!

By David Ponce

It’s kind of hard not to like this lamp. It combines so many of the things we like into one 7.5 inch tall object. LEGO, for one. And Star Wars, for two. And lightsabers for three. It’s powered through AAA batteries, or through USB. And it launches in May for $50.

That’s a fair price.

What’s not so nice is the fact that they used an annoying pre-pubescent boy to “narrate” the promotional video.

Really guys?

[ Product Page ] VIA [ NerdApproved ]

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