Katie Couric is looking for all kinds of helpful inventions that will
make her audience think: “Why didn’t I think of that?” You’d better
hurry up though, the open call for submissions closes on October 14th!
Sometimes I see the kinds of toys being sold in stores today and I worry. Baby dolls with a diapered monkey pet, pole dancer dolls (apparently, these exist), shopping spree board games… Don’t get me wrong, these toys are probably fun and your kid will probably love them.
But I’d love to see more toys with better educational values on the shelves, because that way, they have tons of fun and actually learn something – like with the Robot Turtles board game.
Thought up by Dan Shapiro, Robot Turtles is a board game that teaches your kids the basic language of programming. The premise of the game is simple: the kids get a stack of action cards, while an adult reads the instructions and moves the turtle for the on the board. When they want to move the turtle in a certain way, they have to pick a card and lay it on the table.
Don’t you wish you played something like this growing up before you enrolled at, say, MIT or the University of Management and Technology, to take up some IT course so that basic programming would’ve been at least one of your first languages? Yeah, I bet you do.
Dan sums the entire game up pretty nicely: “The little programmers put instruction cards down, driving the turtles through the maze, but the grownup is the computer, executing commands on the board. At its heart, Robot Turtles is a game about bossing around adults. Just like programming is about bossing around computers.”
A lot of people think Robot Turtles is a good idea, because it raised over $630,000 on Kickstarter, which is many times over Dan’s $25,000 project goal. If you didn’t have a chance to make a pledge to get the game, then you can join the mailing list on the Robot Turtles website to find out when it becomes available again.
Funny thing is, this isn’t the first time turtles have been used to help kids learn how to program…
[via Dvice]
I’ve collected a list of the best “Toy of the Year” industry-leading
outdoor toys from the past five years, so you’ll know exactly what the
cool kids are playing with from the back yard, to the driveway and
beyond. They kids will have fun while getting some fresh air, so these
goodies are a win-win for everyone!
Results of a study published in Breast Cancer Research & Treatment
indicate that girls who eat peanut butter or nuts regularly when they
are young have better breast health when they are older. Specifically…
Some parents have a great sense of humor when it comes to their babies….others have people in their life willing to jab them. This has never been truer than with prank pacifiers – fully functioning binkies with an exceptionally silly look. Here’s are my picks for funny baby pacifiers…
Each year, the Toy Industry Association presents the top toys in a variety of categories the coveted “Toy of The Year” award. This week, I’m happy to showcase the premier preschool toys from the past five years, and I know I’d have had a blast with this cool stuff when I was in preschool…
The Tooth Fairy is one busy lady! She flies from house to house every night, collecting teeth that kids have left under their pillows and leaving a dollar or two (or a special surprise) in exchange for it.
So that’s the story our parents told us, and I’m sticking with it.
But with the growing population, the Tooth Fairy is probably having a hard time keeping up. Awesome dad Jeff Highsmith wanted to make sure his kid’s teeth are received in a timely manner, so he built a vacuum-powered pneumatic tube system that’ll “send” them straight to the Tooth Fairy. An adult can hang out at the receiving station to return some cash or gifts back to the child waiting on the other end of the line.
Jeff built an easy-to-navigate interface using Hype and used Raspberry Pi to power the whole thing. Aside from the Tooth Fairy, other recipients to choose from include Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, so just think of all the wish lists and letters your kid will be sending when those holidays roll around.
[Make: via Hack a Day via Neatorama]
The Owlet isn’t a baby monitor is the usual sense of the word. I mean, it lets you monitor your baby, but not in the way that most baby monitors do, which is let you hear what’s going on at the moment.
Instead, the Owlet is actually a bootie that measures your baby’s vital stats. It’s pretty compact and fits into a washable bootie (yes, it’s waterproof too), so it shouldn’t be too hard to keep this particular monitor on your child.
The Owlet works in conjunction with an app that lets you see how your baby is doing, providing quick stats on your baby’s position, temperature, oxygen levels and heart rate. It can also detect if they are sleeping.
Its creators were hoping to raise $100,000 to fund production, and have already exceeded their goal. The project was rejected by Kickstarter (I’m not sure why), so they have taken to creating their own crowdfunding site to raise the money. You can make a pledge of $159(USD) to get one of your very own Owlet baby monitor. That seems like a small price to pay to have this sort of peace of mind.
[via C|NET]
Securing your baby on the changing table can be cumbersome at times. That’s where SnuggWugg comes in.
Squigz by Fat Brain is a whole different building toy experience! Like
other building toys, Squigz are brightly colored and are made to stick
together. That’s basically where the similarities end.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
