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Archive for the ‘Toys Articles’ Category

Electronic “sand toy” features LEDs that shift as if affected by gravity

There's a detailed guide to building the LED Matrix Sand Toy at Adafruit:

These LEDs interact with motion and looks like they’re affect by gravity. An Adafruit LED matrix displays the LEDs as little grains of sand which are driven by sampling an accelerometer with Raspberry Pi Zero!

The 3D Printed handles make it easy to ...

Mattel launches line of “gender inclusive” dolls

Mattel, makers of Barbie and many other toys, has launched "Creatable World," a line of $30 customizable dolls with "extensive wardrobe options, accessories and wigs allow kids to style the doll with short or long hair, or in a skirt, pants, or both."

“Toys are a reflection of culture and as the world continues to celebrate ...

Fantastic fingerboard trick video from 1999

These days, my 13-year-old son and his friends are all about playing with their Tech Deck fingerboards during lunch at school. This 1999 video "Fingers of Fury!" is from 1999 yet two decades later, kids (and adults) are still fanatic about fingerboarding. From Consumer Time Capsule:

Famous fingerboarders Darin Langhorst, Damien Bernadet and Tony Pauthex ...

Mattel designed a Barbie doll honoring her accomplishments, but what was accomplished??

Eleni Antoniadou's reported accomplishments were so impressive that Mattel designed a Barbie doll based on her as part of its International Women’s Day celebration.

But those "accomplishments" might all be nonexistent. Here's a partial list from the BBC as to suspicions raised:

Claim: She worked on the world's first artificial trachea that was successfully transplanted ...

A lovely film of spinning tops by Charles and Ray Eames

In 1969, visionary designers Charles and Ray Eames directed this cinematic ballet of more than 100 spinning tops from around the world. The score is by famed Hollywood composer Elmer Bernstein (The Ten Commandments, The Magnificent Seven, Airplane!, etc.). From the Eames Office:

Tops had its genesis in an earlier film produced for the Stars ...

The Slinky was invented by accident

Today is National Slinky Day. As Rachael Lallensack writes in Smithsonian, a spring, a spring, this marvelous thing was invented by accident:

In 1943, mechanical engineer Richard James was designing a device that the Navy could use to secure equipment and shipments on ships while they rocked at sea. As the story goes, he dropped ...

Ponyhenge is a place where toy rocking horses go to die

Or live on, depending on who you talk to.

Ponyhenge started when a toy rocking horse was discarded in a field. It had been part of a headless horseman decoration from a nearby, shuttered haunted house. Soon, other toy horses joined it, lined up in a circle.

The herd mysteriously multiplies, moves around, and gets ...