Saturday, June 02, 2007

Impossible toys


For Adam's birthday last year, he kept asking for this XPV Fly Wheels toy that he saw advertised on TV. Since it had just come out for the holiday season, we paid a premium for it at Target ($70) and then also had to buy a $30 battery (thankfully funded by a gift certificate he also received). It looked like a cool toy, which could run on land, fly in the air, do loops, etc. The first time Adam tried it with dad, they flew it in our yard, which is fairly large. Doug wanted to get a handle on the controls as it is basically two joysticks controlling two fan motors independently. If you don't control it carefully, the aircraft immediately goes into a spin. Within a few minutes, Doug flew it into a small tree. He ended up cutting down the tree to retrieve it. The next time they tried it, they went to the high school field where there is plenty of open space. Again, Doug fly it into a tree. This time he couldn't cut it down, so they left it up there and checked every few days to see whether it fell down. About two weeks later it had come down and despite weathering a few rainstorms, held up fine. Now the toy sits on Adam's shelf gathering dust because it is simply too hard to play with. I asked Dr. Toy about another toy that I was obsessed with as a child but haven't heard back yet:
In the mid 1970's there was a handheld hoop about 12 inches in diameter and 4 inches wide which you could roll a ball inside of. You could pass the ball to person with another hoop. I remember the commercials being cool and begging to get one, but when I got it, it was nearly impossible to do and I could only roll the ball a couple of times. What is this toy?
They made it look so easy in the TV commercial, but when I got it home, it was really hard to do and no fun at all. I think I imagined that it had a clear track inside of it so you could roll it forever, but didn't think through how you could throw it off the track and pass it to another person. I hate impossible toys and how they make them look so easy on television! Things never change.

1 comment :

Bigqueue said...

That Fly Wheels toy really looks cool....only a step away from a real scale radio control model.

RC models are great fun because there are so many aspects to the hobby. There is of course the flying part (which i loved, but was not the best at)

The second was the construction aspect of it all....learning to read plans and learning to be patient and doing good work. (because it means the difference between being an easy flier and a real bear to handle)

Then there is the competitive end of business where you can join competitions....build competitions, scale competitions....lying competitions. All kinds out there.

Then of course there is the social aspect of the club. I started in the sport when I lived in Va in 1982...and then moved the addiction with me to Chelmsford and then to NH.....though I didn't do as much when I got to NH as we were having kids and they were taking up more and more of my time.

There are plenty of clubs around.....a pretty big on in Derry NH....a small one in Litchfield.