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The Return of Toys
valdean writes "With videogames becoming so ubiquitous, it sometimes seems like kids have less and less time for toys these days. Toy makers, however, are pushing back with high tech toys designed to be more compelling than a game of Supreme Commander. The New York Times reports that remote controlled vehicles in particular seem to be up for some friendly competition. As one designer suggests, 'navigating well-designed vehicles in the physical world... is vastly more compelling than steering a virtual vehicle in a computer-generated universe.' Will toys ever be able to compete with videogames again?"
My mom gave me a brick and told me to go play outdoors
-Eod
"I think, right now, that there is a push back from our industry to get kids off the couch where they're playing video games," Mr. Khasminsky said in a telephone interview from his office in Toronto.
so he works for nintendo on the wii?
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
The all-mighty lego!
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Sorry, I don't think so. Toys are timeless and they can take you places where you cannot normally go. They encourage and develop the imagination, thought, and reasoning. Toys can take you into a mental journey where you can craft your imagery. Conversely, a computer game is an artist's conception of a theme as reflected in its graphics. You may or may not agree with that theme but you are, however, stuck with it. Toys are an extremely important part of development that also build fine motor skills and coordination at the early childhood level while a video game simply teaches automatic reaction. Toys teach us reflective thinking and problem solving. Now granted, toys do break, but that may simply be a fault of design or an absense of quality in the construction. I, for one, lament that toys are taking backseat to video games and high technology stuff and I'm only 29. Whatever happened to simple, whole-hearted pleasures?
I used to play a lot with GI Joe's. Now, I am killing iraqi terrorists. It's cool.
The reviews on that helicopter are hilarious. I own one, so does my brother. He's experienced with flying r/c models; I'm not. Even for me, it was a matter of a few minutes use to get the hang of it. It flies VERY easily, but isn't *quite* so easy to steer in a specific direction you want - once you get the hang of it, though, which doesn't take long for anybody with the slightest knowledge of physics, you can pretty much fly it right to the point in the room that you desire.
Given that it can be bought elsewhere brand new, with LiPo battery and remote (which doubles as a charger), for just $30 - and it can crash over and over without the slightest damage to the helicopter - it is an amazing value.
Far, far more fun (and easier to control) than the $150 beginner's R/C copter I bought a month or two before it.
This helicopter is made by a Hong Kong company called Silverlit, the same people behind the i-Cybie robot dog (a much cheaper equivalent to Sony's Aibo, with surprisingly sophisticated capabilities for the price), and behind a line of tiny $30 R/C planes which are even easier to fly than the helicopter is.
Silverlit quite obviously have some rather talented designers working for them...
In other news:
For the 1,000 consecutive year the ball has won best toy of the year again.
Bricks are cool. Lego never went away....
I recently took my kid to a place called "the treehouse" in Ogden, UT. She discovered a toy called "Kapla" It's brilliant- nothing but a wheelbarrow filled with sticks measuring 1" x 4" x 1/4" each. About 2000 of them. She made a tower over 3 feet tall, then had a blast knocking it down by throwing things at it. Tactile toys have their own appeal.
In fact, I make a living by selling kids a set of plans that can turn a brick, a stick, and some string into a machine that hurls eggs. It's called a trebuchet. There is a market for old school stuff. Just look at http://www.catapultkits.com./ Then there's the toy guns, pogo sticks and skateboards - http://www.ballistictoys.com/ - that help a kid get an intuitive feel for ballistic motion, the foundations of physics.
Here's the appeal- Kids learn real physics, not simulated physics as in a computer game. With the catapult kits, they get to do simple math to predict how far it will throw, then (and this is the part that gets them hooked) they go outside, into the field to test their work. When they see the connection between the math and the real world machine, one that hurls an egg about 200 feet, then they get excited. They see how to apply math to do something fun, outside, away from the CPU and CRT, LCD, etc.
Real toys are an important part of a kid's total education. Even if it's a piece of string, a stick and a brick.