While the Tornader robot from Elekit can drive slowly around the floor like most remote-controlled vehicles, the real fun starts when you set the Tornader into one of its insane spin modes.

Once the ‘bot builds up sufficient speed, it’ll fly around in a wild orbit that’s reminiscent of an out-of-control breakdancer who drank a few too many Red Bulls before hitting the dance mat. Check out this video clip of the Tornader in action and you’ll see what I’m talking about:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The 5-inch diameter robot kit takes about an hour to put together, but from the looks of the video, is well worth the effort. Each Tornader ships with a multi-channel infrared remote, which lets you operate up to four of them in the same room at the same time for complete robotic chaos. And each robot has a customizeable space on the side where you can place one of a variety of colorful printed patterns that’ll have your head spinning when the Tornader hits maximum speed.

While the Tornader is officially only available in Japan, the guys at Japan Trend Shop have started to sell them worldwide for $121 (USD). Of course, if you happen to live in Japan, you can get yourself a much better deal, since the Tornader retails there for just ¥3990 (appx. $44 USD).

Elekit’s OTOKIBAKO plays music data from strips of paper with black and white bars on them. You can generate your own music strips using the provided software (Windows only.) The music box has a 3 octave range, including half-tones, and comes with 15 pre-installed melodies and 8 sound samples (you can hear them here by clicking on the little icons.) And while turning the crank feeds the music to the player, it still needs batteries to generate sounds.

Remember, this is a build-it-yourself kit (assembly time is estimated at 5 hours,) so you’ll need to feel comfortable soldering and assembling electronics. Also, the music software is in Japanese, but it looks pretty self-explanatory. Each OTOKIBAKO kit will set you back