Just Toying with Me
Posted in Kids, Technology on Feb 19th, 2007
(Note: The final chapter of “Apartment Life Returns” is now available. Thanks for reading. Enjoy. If you’d like to read it all at once starting now, then go here.)
Some engineers have all the fun. (figure out how it’s supposed to look before watching the video)
Okay, so I don’t know that it took an engineer to draw up this toy, but I must say it took a designer with some engineering know-how. I hope it took some kind of big brain to conceive it, because merely putting it together was more of a challenge than I like to admit.
But, of course, I’ll do so here, and with gusto.
Ben’s grandparents from back east sent this to him a couple years ago (at least). At the time, it fascinated Shannon and me, while mildly interesting Ben. Considering its delicate parts and built-in, battery-powered hair puller, we decided to pack it away until Ben reached a more appropriate age. When exactly that was, we were never sure, but in the past couple weeks he’s been asking for it at least once a day.
Because Shannon doesn’t know how to put it together (yet), he can enjoy it only when I’m at home.
Here’s a video of the action, cobbled together from several clips recorded on my miniDV camcorder.
Now, in the spirit of DVD’s and even some Pay-Per-View movies, here are bloopers and outtakes.
In this one I prove why, after I spent nearly an hour finding the pieces and assembling the thing, I wasted a few tries getting it to work.
Here, I do everything right, but there’s a misfire in the rock bin. Dang props.
Note: To re-run any of these, you might have to click the “back” button (the arrow pointing left, with a vertical line next to it) and then click the “play” button.
Update: A regular reader reminded me of another point, so here’s more.
See those little white tabs scattered throughout the track (see pic at top)? Ben has figured out what they do and how to use them to make the various loaders go back for more rocks, go get rocks they missed the first time, etc. But, he still loves his race cars and spends a lot more time with them. In fact, he likes to roll them on this track and then take them off at the last minute before the loader runs them over.
That is great. It reminds me of all the fun we had playing Mousetrap as a kid. It really didn’t matter who won as long as everything worked.
Blitz - Exactly. I was thinking, “By the gods, I’m letting this thing run until that AA battery just can’t pump it out any more.”
That toy looks like some of the battery powered car tracks that I had as a kid. Anyone remember something called the Crazy Buggy? How about Crazy Loco–a wild toy locomotive?
There was one electric car track called US1 that had a gravel drop, gravel dump, log dump, and other such things. It is hard to describe it.
I enjoyed Mousetrap. I had one set. I never played the game. It was more fun making the thing activate.
Sure, it’s fun to watch.. but what does BEN do???
Get him a racing car set, and have some real fun bud! *LOL*
John - Never seen those toys you mentioned, but Mousetrap was cool.
Dave - See update at bottom of post.
Never having seen one of those before, I totally want one now. For my own sons, of course. What’s interesting is that I can see my older boy (eventually) going more for something like this, and my younger being more enthralled by race cars.
We also had a Mouse Trap game growing up. However, with a brother five years younger than me, all the pieces were chewed-on and bent and mangled in various ways. Under the trap was a pretty safe place for a mouse to be in our house.
Cool video of a very cool toy. It appeals to the model train enthusiast in me, but I know it’s one of those touchy toys that will lead to hours of frustration amidst the fun.
I love any toy that has a track you have to put together! Just ask Allen. I must come over and play with it.
*LOL*
Very cool toy.
And I appreciate that you explained the “back” button for me. Sweet of you, but I already knew what that is…
Simon - I had a feeling that might be your reaction. When I first saw it work, I was amazed. It’s just so cool, for lack of a better word.
MG - Oddly, it’s done very well. It ran for at least 10 minutes without a problem. Most often, it’s the dump truck at the top of the hill that has a problem. Sometimes it just gets stuck up there and never dumps nor reverses direction.
Alvis - I noticed a Geotrax (tracks?) in Allen’s play area Saturday night. Pretty cool.
Linda - No, it wasn’t just for you. I think, in an ideal world, one should be able to just press play again for it to start over. But, I could be imagining that it ever worked that way.
I didn’t mean that you explained how the player worked. I meant that you described what the button looked like!
;-) That’s why I thought it was for me.
I love toys. I love you, Mark. Did I just write that?
barrett - That’s okay. I love you too, big bear.
Tonight I came back to see if I could get the videos to play. There was a warning bar at the top in blue letting me know that I needed to click on it to use Active X and to allow the video to play. Once I did that….worked like a charm. I’d just never noticed it before.
Keep the instructions to that contraption. I’m sure LC will want to play with it. :-)