Monday, December 31, 2007

I've been busy building.

If you tell people that a small boy is interested in building robots, that small boy is very likely to receive robot related kits. And if that boy has a mother who enjoys assembling items, that mother will likely spend much of her holiday vacation building and rebuilding and rebuilding yet again. The boy might even have to remind his mother that the kits were given to him, not to her, and that she should really pick up her knitting and leave the kits alone for a little while.

Grandma and Grandpa showed up with some Wacky Wigglers. The Wigglers are indeed Wacky. The kit has a motor, many gears, and some accessories. It's fun to see how the gears work together to move our creations.

Santa dropped off a snap circuit board. I cannot even begin to describe how very cool this toy is. The version Jake received has instructions to build 100 different projects that illustrate various circuits and ways to use electricity. The kit was for kids over age 8, so we've had numerous discussions about only building the written projects and only building with an adult until Jake understands the underlying concepts (or until I finally get sick of building with the kit myself).

Jake also received a race track that uses magnets from his other grandma and a snap-together construction set from his great-aunt. All told, we have about 675 individual pieces that have thus far added up to over 60 hours of fun. I don't remember toys being this cool when I was a kid.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's hilarious. Play with your own toys, Christy!

I'm intrigued by that circuit board thingy. I somehow cruised through that segment of Physics class unscathed by knowledge, so part of me wants to pick that up and get a better understanding of what I obviously missed back then.

Mary Witzl said...

Toys have definitely gotten cooler in some respects, but I fondly recall slinkies, trolls, hoola hoops, jump ropes, skip tapes and jacks. I don't know when I've seen anyone playing with those lately, and how sad. Plus, it makes me feel so old...

We had one of these kits too, but only my husband played with them. Awful, isn't it? The girls used the plastic pieces as pretend cakes and pies. I would have loved it if they had busily assembled these and treated them the way they were supposed to, but no.

Mary Witzl said...

Eek! I left that message about six times as I did not realize you had enabled comment moderation! Sorry about all of those superfluous comments. You should have seen my face when I finally figured out what was happening...

Christy said...

I think I'm turning the comment moderation off again. I had some spam so I turned it on, but honestly it's a pain in the eyeball. And I just accidentally deleted a comment that I meant to allow. Urg. Frustrating!