Remember Teddy Ruxpin? For his time he was pretty advanced as far as animated toys go. But as a stuffed animal he was the last thing you wanted to take to bed with you. He had enough ’80s technology inside him to stop a car if left in the middle of the street, so I don’t think he ever became any kid’s best friend. A group of researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology are hoping to right history’s wrongs though, and are working on an animated stuffed animal that’s still soft to the touch.
Strings running through the bear’s arms and legs are connected to motors hidden inside its padded torso. By pulling on the strings with varying amounts of force, the limbs are able to move in different directions, creating a fairly convincing life-like effect. Furthermore, because the strings are under tension, the electronics in the torso are also able to detect and register when the limbs have been touched or moved externally, allowing the bear to react and move in response. Most importantly, it’s these kinds of advancements that will give mankind the upper hand and advantage when robots eventually become self aware and rise up. Arms and legs made of steel make punches and kicks very dangerous. But arms and legs made of fabric and stuffing? They make being attacked feel like getting an overzealous hug!
If your kid is at the age when they’re even remotely interested in playing with building blocks, I’m pretty sure they’re not even close to being literate yet. But it’s never too early to push them towards academic excellence, so forego those alphabet blocks in favor of this colorful set which features 20 wooden blocks printed with every element of the periodic table. Including their name, atomic number and symbol. While building forts and castles, on a subconscious level they could be on their way to becoming the next Alfred Nobel. The sets are handmade in Grand Rapids, Michigan and are available from UncommonGoods for $40.
Instead of humorously mocking your child’s complete lack of artistic talent, ala Maddox, a company called Child’s Own Studio turns their imaginative sketches of animals, characters and pretty much anything, into plush toys. The idea started as a craft project to turn a 4 year old boy’s drawing into a recognizable comfort toy, but has grown to over 200+ original creations. Pricing seems entirely dependent on the sketch and how complicated the creation will be, but you can get a gift certificate for $100 CAD that should give you a rough idea of what they run.
Before they’re old enough to tackle a 2-wheel bicycle, most young’ns start off on either a tricycle or a push bike. Neither of them require much in the way of balance skills, but the latter tends to be a bit more stylish. Usually looking like a wooden jigsaw puzzle pulled from the pages of an IKEA catalog. But Ryan Callahan, an industrial designer at Trek, took a far different approach. Inspired by the sequel to TRON, the learning bike he created for the TrekWorld 2012 show looks like a miniature version of the light cycles seen on screen. Albeit with a raised set of handlebars to make it easier for kids to ride.
At this point it’s very regrettably still just a concept, and with the marketing push for the TRON sequel being over a long time ago, I have my doubts this will ever become a reality. Though with rumors that a third TRON movie could be a possibility, I’ll keep a small flame of hope alive that one day my kids will be tooling around the backyard on one, making impossibly tight 90-degree right and left hand turns.
We first wrote about the Zip Zip building block USB flash drives way back in 2007, and surprisingly the company has yet to come under legal fire from LEGO since then. So, perhaps with a false sense of legal security, they’ve finally decided to expand their offerings with a new line of external hard drives that look like large LEGO blocks. Except they’re not. Got it?
Available in 500GB to 1TB capacities and sporting USB 3.0, the drives can be stacked together forming one uber-brick storage unit. Or adorned with your favorite, though in no way officially associated, LEGO building blocks. They’ll probably also serve as a handy home base for the Zip Zip USB flash drives. They haven’t popped up on Zip Zip’s website just yet, but it’s safe to assume they’ll be available sometime between now and the start of the Christmas shopping season.
RC toys based on the Mario Kart games have been around for a while now. But typically as very tiny versions, most suitable for racing on a desk. ThinkGeek has managed to get their hands on some much larger versions, but I raise an eyebrow when they refer to them as ‘Super Deluxe’.
They’re certainly the most detailed versions of Mario and Yoshi behind the wheel that I’ve ever seen. And you’d expect them to be pretty fast given the size of motor their scale allows for. But I’ve seen misbalanced washing machines make their way across a room faster than these do. Just check out ThinkGeek’s video of them in action.
And while it’s kind of cool to see real-life versions of both of these characters in a kart, racing them just isn’t the same without shells, banana peels and other power-ups. Particularly when they’re $119.99 each.
Now that the Bit Char-G fad has officially faded, and miniature remote control vehicles are commonplace on toy store shelves, Hot Wheels has decided it’s time to see just how far these micro racers can be pushed. Their latest entry into the RC field, shown off at Toy Fair 2011 in New York many moons ago, is their RC Nitro Speeders. The cars are less than 1 3/4-inches long, or 1/87th scale, but have a top speed of 8.3mph. When you crunch the numbers, that’s equal to about 600mph for a full-sized vehicle.
Besides making them nearly impossible to drive flat-out on anything smaller than a basketball court, that speed and power lets them tackle vertical loops with ease. In fact, the cars are small enough to be driven on standard orange Hot Wheels stunt tracks. So in theory, whatever you can do with your die-cast Hot Wheels, you can do with these.
Like any miniature RC toy these days, they charge via their controller which is where you install a plethora of AA batteries (4 in this case) and the whole package is small enough to theoretically squeeze into a kid’s pocket. Besides their size and speed, what I find most impressive is that Hot Wheels was even able to cram proportionate steering and acceleration into the Nitro Speeders, which is pretty much a must if you have any hopes of not ramming it into a wall. Available sometime this Fall in Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro and Ken Block’s Ford Fiesta versions for just under $30.
Building your own replica prop is a true sign of devotion to whatever you’re a fan of, but it’s also nice when a big company does that hard work for you. At Comic-Con a few weeks ago Mattel unveiled their new Ghostbusters ghost trap prop replica that will go on sale in October for $135, and it looks like they’ve really gone the extra mile.
The trap has two modes, ‘prop’ and ‘movie’ mode. In the prop mode the doors open and the trap lights up when you step on the tethered pedal, including all of the blinking status and indicator lights to indicate a ghost has been caught and detained once it’s closed. In the movie mode it’s pretty much the same thing, except that the light show is far more animated, there’s additional sound effects that play as you open and close the trap’s doors, and it will even bounce around and shake afterwards simulating a ‘real’ ghost trapped inside. The cartridge that holds the ghost can even be removed for disposal, though the laser-grid protected Ecto-Containment Unit where you’d do so isn’t included.
Takara Tomy is hoping to get kids hooked on digital photography at an even younger age than anyone thought was possible with this new toddler-friendly digital camera they unveiled at the Tokyo Toy Show last month. I’m assuming it’s durable enough to be frequently dropped, and sports the usual bright colors, cartoony characters and oversized buttons we’ve come to expect on kid-friendly electronics. But what makes it unique is that instead of an oversized viewfinder or a large LCD display on the back, the camera simply features a photo-sized hole that littles ones can hold up in front of them to frame their shots. Now I’m sure the photos it snaps won’t perfectly match what kids are seeing in the frame, but I doubt they’ll be as anal about it as a professional photographer would be.
I have no idea when the camera will be available, how much it will cost or if you’ll ever be able to find one outside of Japan. But according to Japan Trends it does include a self-timer and has enough storage to hold 99 x 3MP shots.
Related Tags: Innovation, Robots, Toys
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