Category: Cool Toys

This diminutive race car from Japan does one thing really well – it drives around in a circle, over and over again. While it’s not quite as exciting as watching hillbillies turning left a NASCAR race (sarcasm), at least you get a front-row seat to this tiny little race whenever you want. Just load the Gakken MM Circuit race car into its special wheel-revving charger for 5 seconds, then drop it into the bowl-shaped racetrack and it spins round-and-round (like a record baby, right round, round, round) at a breakneck pace of 0.6

Sure, you can pick up a cheap disposable camera at the neighborhood convenience store for about $10 bucks, but why buy one of those when you can build your own for a few dollars more? The SuperHeadz Plamodel 35mm camera kit lets you snap together your camera using die-cut pieces that are reminiscent of the first time you built a model car or airplane when you were a kid. When you’re all done putting the 30-odd pieces of the Plamodel kit together, it should look something like this: Or if you’re less mechanically-inclined, something like this: Yeah, yeah, I know.

Happy 25th anniversary, Buckyball! Welcome Google visitors! (9/4/2010) Hey guys! Let’s play a game! I call it “Hazard!” Here’s how it goes: I describe something, and you tell me the answer in the form of a question.

Fresh off the boat from Japan, these miniature remote control cars let you tool around as the characters from Mario Kart. These Q-Steer cars from TakaraTomy let drive around using a pocket-size infrared remote control. Each one features the likeness of one of your favorite characters, and they can run on different frequencies so you can race against your friends.

As much fun as a game of paintball can be, there’s nothing fun about trying to get all that paint out of your hair and off your skin. This fun shooter replaces the messy paint with chalk, making cleanup a bit easier – although god only knows what all that chalk dust will do for your lungs. The Wipeout chalk dust pistol comes with special “chalk darts” which can fire up to 30 shots per cartridge.

You may have read about this innovative video game for cats last April. Now there’s a bunch of cat toys perfect for those geeky cats who like to gnaw on the wires from your video game controllers. GEEKitty makes these soft and lumpy cat toy versions of controllers that are guaranteed not to electrocute your feline pals. Each toy is handmade from felt, thread, squishy stuffing and some tasty catnip. Whether your cat prefers the Xbox 360, the Wii, a classic Nintendo or rocking out a session of Guitar Hero, there’s a toy for your cat.

Have some old concert or train tickets lying around? With a little folding, some X-Acto knife skill and a whole lot of patience, you can turn those old tix into some tiny little X-Wing Fighters. Paper-master Hubert de Lartigue shows you how-to do it with a Paris METRO ticket here.

When I was a kid, I really wanted to be Marvin the Martin. No, not because of his stylish scrub-brush headgear or his oversize clown shoes. Nope, it was the awesome destructive power of his ACME Ray Gun that I envied. Now, thanks to sculptor Andy Hill of Electro Art Works, you can own your very own one-of-a-kind ray gun.

Ever wanted to hug an accurate representation of the Black Death bacterium? Or punt an Athlete’s Foot fungus for all those embarrassing years in high school? Or play house with a sperm cell and an egg cell?

At first glance, I thought this seafaring sports car was the underwater Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who Loved Me. Much to my amazement, it’s a real amphibious Lamborghini Countach built by Mike Ryan of SeaRoader.

Chief Happiness Officer (nice!) Alexander Kjerulf received a business card from a friend. But since his friend worked at LEGO, this is what she handed to him: Alexander adds that LEGO tries to match the appearance of the employee with the minifig.

Some people go in for a regular ol’ security system, the kind with panels and codes and alarms. And you could do that, sure. Or, you could put together some real home security: a paintball turret. It took two years to build this bad boy, and the finished product can fire up to 34 balls per second.

Some games linger, even when they’re no longer in the spotlight, and BioShock is a game that may never die. The sinister underwater city of Rapture continues to haunt the minds–and hands–of artisan gamers around the world.

These little UFO-shaped robot dudes respond to the sound dance around your place, guided by the sounds they hear. The Gakken Kagaku No Tamago UFO Robot (say that 10 times fast) comes in easy-to-assemble kit form, and is controlled not by a traditional remote, but by the sounds you make – think of these guys like a robot version of The Clapper.

Here’s a handy way to keep a secret. Just grab one of these ultraviolet invisible ink pens, and you can leave yourself hidden messages that you can easily decode using the same pen you wrote them with. Each pen has a built-in ultraviolet LED light, you can read messages that are invisible to the naked eye.

I don’t know why bopping moles on the head with a mallet is fun. It just is. This desktop Whac-A-Mole game lets you whack to your hearts content. Got an important conference call? Why not whack some while you’ve got your speakerphone on “mute”?