Every year, Tim attends the New York Toy Fair, where all the latest toys, novelties and puzzles are on display. To some extent it represents a preview of many of the toys we will be seeing in the shops next Christmas. Tim also takes the opportunity to visit several of his favourite toy shops in New York, and he also enjoys meeting up with friends old and new.
First up, two little coffee cups, which appear to be full of coffee. Push the top to activate, and they zoom across the table, saying "coffee, coffee, coffee". Then we see an updated version of a toy called Tangle, which came out in the 1970s; this updated version lights up as well!
A 3 x 3 x 3 cube of coloured beads seems reminiscent of the Rubik Cube, and indeed this toy works in the same way. Tim visited a Japanese shop, and he found a cap that you can pop on the end of a pencil, so you can clip it in place in your top pocket, just like a Biro. However it has another function, since it doubles up as a pencil sharpener.
Chopsticks - something everyone is familiar with. However these chopsticks have little hands at the end. Do they help you to pick things up? Tim demonstrates the chopsticks by picking up a piece of pie - well, ok, it is actually Pi, the mathematical symbol, made out of soap. He found these at the Museum of Mathematics.
We then see another toy with a collection of coloured beads. However this is not a Rubik Cube, the spheres are help together with elastic, so it feels very different when you manipulate it. And staying on the manipulation theme, Tim demonstrates a toy that has three pieces, each a semi circle of plastic with two beads on the end, and the three pieces slot together in an orthogonal fashion to create a very pleasing shape.
Tim then demonstrates a new toy from an old friend of his, Rufus Butler Seder. Rufus is an expert animator and works across a variety of media. This toy looks a bit like a hand held fan. In the handle there are sweets. But if you press the button on the side, the fan spins, and the LEDs embedded in the blades of the fan produce a series of animations. In this case, it is characters from the film Toy Story.
We then move on to greeting cards. First a piece of paper engineering; it packs flat so you can send it in the post, but when you unpack it, it becomes... an oven. Open the door and out pops a birthday cake with a candle on it! From the Japanese shop, Tim found a lovely small card that opens up to show a fish swimming in what appears to be a glass bowl. Finally, a birthday card that comes in a foil packet. You write you greeting on the outside of the pack, and send it to the lucky recipient. They need to place the packet flat on the table, and hit it! This causes a little sachet inside to burst, and a small chemical reaction occurs which releases carbon dioxide, and inside the packet, a balloon starts to inflate. It gets bigger and bigger, until the foil packet bursts open and the balloon appears. The greeting on the balloon says 'Happy Birthday'. What larks, Pip, what larks!!
