Toys

I have a dog at home and I have a mounted webcam to check in on him. This system works fairly well but occasionally he isn’t on the couch in the living room and it is at times like that, that I’ve wished for a camera that I could pan and tilt. I was really excited when I heard about Rovio, I thought it would be the perfect solution! Forget pan and tilt, I could actually go find my dog and check in on him where ever he might be.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to play with all sorts of R/C (remote controlled) cars,planes and helicopters. I’ve even flown an
R/C UFO. But until now, I’d never controlled
an R/C submarine. But now I can say that I have, because Trend Times Toys sent me the Sub-Sonic XP R/C Submarine to review.

There are all kinds of small RC flying toys on the market these days. We’ve reviewed our share of them here on the Gadgeteer. They are fun to play with, but I really am not very good at flying them. If I take one outdoors, it ends up on the roof. If I fly indoors, I tend to crash them into walls, people’s heads, etc. Some people can fly RC toys and some can’t. If you find yourself in the same group as me, then you’ll love the Intelli UFO from Trend Times Toys. Anyone can fly this one!

I’ve loved playing with magnets since I was a kid. I remember that anytime something in the house would break that might have a motor in it, I would snatch it out of the trash, dismantle it and retrieve the
magnets from the motor. I even had a little metal fishing tackle box with tools and scavenged magnets that I kept under my bed. I was an odd child.
:o) Now that I’m an adult, I’m still odd and I still love  magnets. That’s why I was really excited to be able to review two magnetic puzzle sets. One from NeoCube and one from CyberCube.

I know there are still many shopping days left before Christmas, but I’m trying to turn over a new leaf this year and actually get my shopping finished before 11:59pm on December 24th. This will be a first for me if I can actually do it. I figure there are other gadgeteers out there that have procrastination problems like I do, so I wanted to share a fun item that I came across recently. It’s the Tokibot Robot Clock from TOKYOBay.

Last year at this time, I reviewed my very first RC helicopter. It was the PicooZ from HobbyTron. I guess it’s only fitting that almost one year later, that I review a step up from the PiccoZ; today I’m going tell you about the Hornet 3.

Here’s another indoor remote controlled airplane for those of you that have problems controlling RC helicopters. This is the Aero Soarer from Takara Tomy. Brando sent one over for me to tear up. I mean play with. :o)

In the past 12 months, HobbyTron has
sent me several RC helicopters to review, but today I’m going to tell you about
something a little different. HobbyTron has a new offering; the Silverlit Palm-Z
RC airplane. Silverlit is the same
company that created the tiny PicooZ helicopter.

HobbyTron sells a lot of really cool RC flying and driving toys. They recently sent me the BladeRunner II. I was really surprised that they would trust me with another RC helicopter as I had totally destroyed the AH-64 Apache helicopter that they had sent me earlier in the year. After I had tried it, I was convinced that RC copters were just too hard to control. I’m happy to report that this is not the case with the Bladerunner II.

If you’re a fan of tiny RC (remote controlled) race cars, you’ll have a blast with the Q-Steer from Takara Tomy. Brando sent me the Mazda RX-8 version. He carries several car types including a Hummer, Subaru, Nissan and Toyota.

Let me start off by saying the Techlasers Infiniti 125mW Green Laser is NOT a toy. Most of your “run of the mill” laser pointers are rated at less than 5 mW (milliwatts) of output. This one weighs in at a hefty 125 mW. What does that mean? It means this baby will burn – literally. More on that later…

Did you ever want a drum kit when you were a kid, but your parents vetoed the idea because you didn’t have the space and they didn’t want to deal with all of the crash boom bangs? What about now, do you still fancy yourself as the next Larry Mullen Jr. of U2? If so, I have a nifty little electronic drum pad from Dream Cheeky that just might start you down the path of stardom. Or not…

Ambient devices have been popping up all over the place these days. There is the Ambient Orb, Ambient Umbrella, Ambient Dashboard, and now we have the Nabaztag/Tag Wireless WiFi Rabbit. Yes, you read that correctly, a WiFi rabbit. And a cute one at that. My good friends at Think Geek were kind enough to send me a Nabaztag/Tag for review.