Hasta La Gadget!

There’s an unending list of things you can build with Lego, but that doesn’t always mean that you should. Case in point: a safe. As clever as this set of Lego bookends is, with a secret mechanism for popping the door on a hidden safe, it can pretty much be foiled with a three-foot fall to the floor. More »

A fire truck. This swamp thing action figure. My Ninja Turtles Shellraiser. Those were my favorite toys growing up—I loved ’em so much that I still remember them to this day. That’s why it’s so interesting to see the toys that kids give special attention to. They’re going to remember it for life. Italian photographer Gabriele Galimberti’s Toy Stories photography series show children from all over the world with their most prized possessions: dolls, stuffed animals, board games and… guns? More »

NASA recently released a few photos of the Expedition 34 crew aboard the International Space Station. Sitting inconspicuously in the corner of one of the pictures was Gort, the Earth-murdering robot from the 1951 classic The Day the Earth Stood Still. So we decided to sift through the vast archives of space exploration looking for other toys we took with us to the heavens. More »

Have you managed to figure out just what kind of gamer are you? Some of us like to solve adventure-based puzzles such as Mario, the Legend of Zelda series, or perhaps a little bit of swashbuckling adventure on the side with Lara Croft in her Tomb Raider outings. For the more tame folks out there, there is always the classic Rubik’s Cube, but assuming you have mastered this puzzle for many years already and are out looking for a new adventure, here is the $79.90 Roulette Wheel IQ Cube that certainly looks as though it will cause you to crack your head permanently in solving it.

For starters, the Roulette Wheel IQ Cube sure as heck looks a whole lot more complicated than your regular Rubik’s Cube, where the former is positively child’s play. Each surface on the Roulette Wheel IQ Cube comes with a roulette, so the ultimate objective in solving it is not only to accomplish each surface’s color, but also the roulette color alongside its sequence number. Looking at it already makes my head spin, and I think I would like to pass, but if you want one, gadget mavens Brando will ship out its pre-orders at the end of this month.
[ Roulette Wheel IQ Cube copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Did you have a basket of LEGO™ as a kid? A kid could play with LEGO or other construction toys for hours on end. Build houses, vehicles or whatever. But did you ever wish that someday you could have life sized houses or vehicles just like you designed? I did. Now days you have Minecraft and other video-based construction games which introduce different skills. But really, does building a virtual world stimulate the brain as much as building with your hands? I tend to believe not.

Over on Quirky.com, the site where users vote on which inventions should come to market, a creative kids construction product just got the go ahead for Quirky involvement. SPARK hopes to spark your kids imagination with modular parts that can be interchanged to create wheeled vehicles and more. SPARK really encourages kids to get as creative as possible while also letting them learn about mechanics of bikes, cars and the like. The concept is that SPARK comes with certain parts and pieces. Pedals, batteries and other devices could be added to make them functional. Or if parents want to go beyond vehicles perhaps other kits could be sold to encourage building of other objects. And what a great way to get parents involved in the building process. Stay tuned to Quirky for next steps in the SPARK development process. And look forward to finally constructing life sized gizmos.
[ Construct Your Own Vehicle copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]