As I had previously blogged, I was heading to Toy Fair 2012 this week for the 109th edition of the incredible industry conference and after covering the event in 2011 (which you can read about HERE), I knew that I would have my photojournalist work ahead of me. With this being the case I decided to break the adventures up into numerous blog chapters that I felt would allow readers an easier digestion of what we saw while at the same time letting every item and company that gets spoken about have a chance to shine. I started my journey in the Press Lounge area and they have Internet access, some coffee and numerous candy dishes for you to load up on energy with and just adjacent to this region was the display of this years winners for the Toy Of The Year awards or the TOTY’s. Since this was not something I focused on last year, I said let’s start off with it this time around so without any further adieu, please check out the Toy Of The Year award winners for 2012.
First up are the Hexbug Nano Hive Habitat (by Innovation Labs Inc.) and Angry Birds “Knock On Wood” Game (by Mattel). I discussed the absolute coolness of the Hexbug line last year and these are amazing little oddities that while creepy to some are really awesome to others. The Hive Habitat lets you pack up and carry your Nano’s around and then play with them wherever you like. There is a bridge and some other field area that has an obstacle course. Angry Birds “Knock On Wood” lets you set up the critters from the addictive video game in real life and test your skills. This game would be dangerous in my house as I have already spent too much time on the video version. Congrats to Innovation Labs Inc. and Mattel for these two great products.
Next up is the Rockboard Scooter Mini and Lego’s Ninjago “Fire Temple”. The Rockboard Scooter Mini sure looked cool, and it propels you along based on a rocking motion on the base. So you pretty much seem to keep in shape while you ride as well and that was cool. This is the smaller version but there is one for older folks like me as well. Maybe I will look into one of those for jaunts around the neighborhood. The Lego Ninjago “Fire Temple” is a very involved and complex set for their Ninjago line of characters. It’s an awesome set and appears to be a lot of fun based on all the different things you can do with the Far East theme of the characters. It’s amazing to see how far Lego has come since I first learned of it so many years ago. Kudos to Rockboard and Lego on these two developments.
The photo below shows the Hot Wheels “Wall Tracks” (by Mattel) and a geared toward the younger generation Elefun “Busy Ball Popper” (by Hasbro/Playskool). The Hot Wheels stuff is pretty self explanatory and allows a different configuration for you to launch your cars which seems cool while the Elefun toy is designed to help out with the hand/eye coordination in your developing infant child. I really like seeing how many items are out there to promote learning and creativity in the kids these days. Great to see fine companies like Playskool continuing to push forward.
Last but not least at all we have the LeapPad by LeapFrog and this is essentially a tablet based item for the younger generation. Some years ago I first learned of LeapFrog when my buddy bought one of their systems for his at the time young daughter. It helped her with counting and her ABC’s and coordination and it was wonderful to see such an item available. Yes it was pricy but if the end result was a more focused mind then fine by me. The LeapPad lets the younger generation have their own brand of Mom and Dad’s tablet and get to do some of the same stuff. It’s a little pricy as an item but technology generally is. This model looks to have some strength to its design as well so can withstand some heavy handling. Thanks LeapFrog for continuing to raise the technical bar when it comes to their products. This is a well-deserved honor.
That brings us to the end of this focused narrative about the ToTY winners for 2012. I have a lot more to share with you and pretty much think that the Toy Fair 2012 postings shall be taking over the PiercingMetal Musings Blog for a couple of weeks. Lucky us that we have a bit of a break from concert reports right now. My objective is some lengthy overviews and some specific company focuses based on how many images I snared. In the end I think you will like it. Check out these companies discussed via their official links below.
Official Websites:
Hexbug: http://www.hexbug.com
Hot Wheels: http://www.mattel.com
LeapPad: http://www.leapfrog.com
Rockboard Scooters: http://www.rockboard.com/
Lego: http://www.lego.com
Hasbro/Playskool: http://www.hasbro.com/playskool/en_US/
Oh so check it out. What I did for you readers was present some Amazon.com product links to the items that I just gave you a brief on. I did this in the event that you wanted to purchase some of these Award Winning products for yourself or your loved ones. You’re welcome 🙂