Dave’s Cool Toys Blog

The amazing video below is of the 2010 Illusion of the year as named by the 6th Annual Best Illusion of the Year Contest held by the Vision Sciences Society.

The illusion was created by Koukichi Sugihara at the Meiji Institute for Advanced Study of Mathematical Sciences, Japan.

The coolest thing about this illusion is that it is a 3-dimensional model. Everything that’s happening is actually happening while it’s being recorded. No, it’s not magnets or anything tricky like that. Watch the video and at about 25 seconds in it will show you how it works.

The illusion clearly only works from one very specific angle. Any other angle shows how it works.

Check out the Illusion of the Year site for the other winners and other great illusions.

Want to build your own? The creators have plans you can download here.

via Gizmodo

Check out this video of 12-year-old Greyson Chance signing the Lady Gaga song "Paparazzi". It was recorded at his school talent show in Edmond, OK. No word on whether or not he won the talent show (I certainly hope he did), but his video has had over 8 million views as of today.

Due to the popularity of his video, he is appearing on the Ellen DeGeneres Show and spoke by phone with Lady Gaga herself!

Watch for this kid in the future.

Watch Greyson on the Ellen show here.

Bubba the Bottom Feeder

Following in our current theme of pool toys, today’s Cool Toy is Bubba The Bottom Feeder
. This is another interesting pool diving toy that makes diving to the bottom of the pool more interesting than just retrieving things.

Place the empty Bubba on the bottom of the pool. Players take turns choosing a little goldfish and diving down and "feeding" it to Bubba. Once Bubba is "full" he floats to the top. The first player to make Bubba float, wins! Each of the little fish are weighted differently, so every game is different and you won’t know how many fish it takes to float Bubba up to the surface. You can play in either the shallow or deep end of the pool

	Bubba gets fed

Bubba comes with eight gold fish and his mouth snaps shut to form a self-contained carrying case.

Bubba The Bottom Feeder Pool Toy. Ages 5 and up, 1 or more players (best with 2-4). $11.95-$17.99

Useless Lego Machine

In January I wrote a blog post about the world’s most useless machine (I want that).

Today we have a follow-up with a very similar toy made of Lego. I stumbled on a YouTube video of the World’s Most Useless Lego Machine. It’s basically the same machine I posted about before, but this time made of Lego.

The creator made about 10 prototypes before completing the final version shown here. He used a clockwork motor for the action rather than electric, so it has a small hole to wind it.

When I see videos like this I wonder what kind of Lego collection these folks have. A search on Amazon for “Lego” came up with 4,868 items! That’s quite a variety of Lego to build things with.

This type of machine is sometimes called “Shannon’s ultimate machine”. It is named for Claude Shannon, an American mathematician and engineer who had many interests and kept a machine like this on his desk that switched itself off. Interestingly, he also build a machine that could solve a Rubik’s Cube, which we just posted about a Lego version the other day.

Rare wind-up doll. Is it Betty Boop?

I came across this item as I was browsing eBay. It is listed as "MUSEUM Celluloid & Tin ULTRA RARE Toy Japan BETTY BOOP?"

The listing says it is Japanese and made of Celluloid & Tin, completely original from the 1920’s, "untouched", with a built-in key to wind it. The listing does mention some skipping and a missing rod for head action. She is 6.5 inches high and "Made in Japan" is marked on the bottom.

The asking price? $19,001.00. Or you can make an offer. For your money, you get free courier delivery to anywhwere in the world.

It is listed as possibly being Betty Boop. But nothing about this doll looks anything like Betty Boop to me.

And although it lists it as being complete, it certainly looks to me as though there should have been a dress over it. That would explain the way the arms are attached.

If you are interested and you have $19,000 laying around that you don’t know what to do with, check it out here. There are much more photos in the listing.

UPDATE – 5/24/10
The price on this item has been dropped to $11,001.00!

Dave’s Cool Toys will be upgrading our online shopping cart system in the coming weeks.

During this time, there may be some website downtime when the entire site, or parts of it, are not available. At other times, the site may run more slowly than usual or some features may not be available while we get things back up to speed.

Once this is done, some links and bookmarks to our site may change. Unfortunately, this is outside of our control and necessary with the upgrade. The links to our main site will remain the same and you can always find the toy you are looking for by going through www.davescooltoys.com.

We apologize for any trouble this may cause our customers and visitors. We assure you that this is only temporary while we update our shopping cart. This will allow us to add new features and make your shopping experience better at Dave’s Cool Toys.

Let the Crazy Chase begin

Today’s Cool Toy is the Crazy Chase Dive Ball.

Since it’s coming into pool season (although it’s way too cold here in the Northeast right now) we are featuring yet another pool diving toy on Dave’s Cool Toys Blog. There are lots of diving toys available, including just using pennies that cost, well, pennies. So to be featured here a diving toy must be unique and innovative.

Crazy Chase Dive Ball has a great twist on the simple diving toy. It moves!

Drop the ball into the water and let it fall to the bottom of the pool. Then dive in (if there’s enough diving depth) and retrieve it. But wait! It’s not there anymore.

Crazy Chase rolls along the bottom of the pool in an unpredictable "crazy" pattern, making it more difficult to retrieve. It might roll away just as you’re about to grab it.

I think this is a great idea for a diving toy that makes this game far more fun than just diving and retrieving

Crazy Chase Dive Ball requires 2 AA batteries, not included and is for ages 6 and up. Price range $9.95-$12.50

We love cannons. Which is why we sell the entire line of Big Bang Cannons (shameless plug). But this little cannon is a power-packed little weapon. It shoots holes in soda cans, breaks glass, pops a balloon from across the room. It’s quite amazing. Although this guy wasn’t too smart to shoot a lightbulb right by his keyboard. Video below.

Now that I watch this again, I hope I wasn’t taken in by a YouTube hoax.

Caption

As you can imagine, I get a lot of emails from manufacturers that want us to sell their product. Most of them are items manufactured in China that are blow our standards. But every so often one catches my attention.

That was the case with Bumper Balls. They look very cool. They are large, inflatable balls that you crawl into. Your legs are left free to "run" around. Once you are set, you can roll around and crash into each other. Just like bumper cars, only with balls.

At first glance, it seems a bit dangerous to be encased in what is essentially a large, inflated, plastic bag. But it’s open at the top and there seems to be some sort of slots in the center to allow air circulation. I’d have to be concerned if one pops, though.

Obviously, they are best for large, open areas, and more of a party situation. They are also a bit costly. I found them on one site for $300.00 (plus $150.00 shipping from Hong Kong). I can’t quite figure out if this is for a set or just one.

Parental warning: Don’t search for "Bumper Balls" on Amazon when there are children around. Trust me.

In any case, they are very cool.

I had a bit of trouble linking to their video since the page is all in Chinese, but I eventually figured it out below. I’ve also included a video from YouTube in case the first one stops working. You can see the original page here.

Sonic Search Package

Our Cool Toy today is another pool toy, the Sonic Search Game. This is another twist on the diving toy. But this time it’s sonic! Turn on the cool plastic device, toss or hide it in the pool, and it starts to emit a sonar-like beep that you can hear underwater. Use the sound to try to locate it and disarm it before 60 seconds are up. After 60 seconds, the alarm sounds. Once you have found and stopped Sonic Search, it will tell you the time, so you can try to best it or keep score (no more timing the kid’s dives). Once the alarm sounds, it will no longer give a time.

I would expect that because Sonic Search is clear, it might be hard to see in the pool, making the beeps more useful. But it does seem like you could just look for it. It also hadn’t occurred to me that you could tell the direction of the beeps underwater, but it seems you can!

Ages 5 and up. Suggested retail $11.99

The Lego Rubic’s Cube robot

How fast can you solve a Rubik’s Cube
? My answer? "Not very".

This robot can solve it in under 25 seconds.

The robot is made from Lego Mindstorm, Lego Technic pieces, and a Droid cell phone running a custom-made application. The cell phone takes pictures of each side of the Rubik’s Cube from above, the uses solves the puzzle and sends instructions to the Mindstorm robot with Bluetooth.

The robot was built by ARM to show off their processor in the Droid phone (which explains the skateboarding Droid robot in the upper right corner). Even though it’s a promotional video, it’s still one of the coolest uses of Lego I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some cool ones.

(via Gizmodo)

What a cutie!

Today’s cool toy is the the Submergibles diving pool toy from Swimway. There are tons of inexpensive diving toys for the pool. Lots are available at the dollar store. But this one has a very cool feature. You can adjust them to either float, sink to the bottom, or suspend in between. What a great twist on diving games! They also look like little mines and the knobs make them easy for little hands to grip. They come with two bright colors in each set (green/blue & yellow/red). Ages 5 and up.

A quick plug for our e-newsletter. This month’s newsletter includes helpful pool safety tips for the home pool.

I love Flash Mobs (a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place and perform a brief act, then disperse). You’ll find several videos on Dave’s Cool Toys Blog of great public performances. This one is of Ohio State students and staff breaking into dance in the great hall of the new Ohio Union on Monday, May 3, 2010 at 12:35 p.m. There’s also an appearance by Brutus Buckeye and Ohio State U. President E. Gordon Gee. For an added bonus, I believe they used music from Glee. Crank the volume, watch in HD if you’re system can handle it, and enjoy.

I missed Star Wars Day, which was yesterday ("May the force" be with you). But I’m making it up with this little movie. It’s the original Star Wars Trilogy told in 2 minutes with animated Lego and narrated by a child. What could be better? The little nuggests of humor go by very fast, so watch it twice (or 3 times). My favorite… "What up, son". I wish I knew who made this, but I haven’t been able to locate that info. Enjoy!

This great "retro" commercial has popped up on YouTube (circa 1983). But if you remember having this bear or seeing this commercial, you have a faulty memory. It’s really a viral video posted by Pixar. Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear is not a real toy, but actually a new character in Toy Story 3. Check it out.