Play

Coming to a mall near you -- well, ROBOTGALAXY is just in NY and NJ malls right now -- but my nine-year-old assures me that it's a winning idea. A friend of mine recently scooped up a bunch of robo-parts and agrees.

From the website:

From John Baichtal @ geekdad:

"ZOOBMover, with its elegantly simple ball & joint connections and stripped down controller, fits the bill. My two youngest kids, ages 4.5 and 3, were able to create their own robot without any help from me. The motive force behind ZOOBMover is a vaguely torsolike plastic chassis covered in connectors so you can add functional and ornamental ZOOB elements. Most importantly it has six sockets for legs, allowing the creation of arthropodal creatures like bugs and dragons."

I blame Hal Iggulden and his "Dangerous Book For Boys" for my obsession over things we did way back before the almighty Wii, back when we only had sticks and rocks to play with, back when injuries came from go-kart spills and invisible ink burns and not from accidental releasing of a Wii Nunchuck. Don't get me wrong. I have a serious addiction to Rock Band but still these things we did when we were kids were really cool too.

In our neighborhood we're in the final four weeks of school before the summer belongs to the kids. Out of their routine, away from normal scheduled activity and academia and not seeing friends daily it'll only take less than a week before we'll start hearing that dreaded phrase "I'm bored," probably spewing from my mouth first. On top of that, with an XBOX 360, Wii, computer and DS in the home it's super tempting to let the kids tune in and drop out while mommy works on mommy stuff. But that's not ok and that's not my style.