Wiggle right on by: An engineer's perspective
Written: Feb 08 '01 (Updated May 10 '01)
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Pros: The trackball/lever assembly is pretty cool.
Cons: The rest of the toy is boring at best and deceptive at worst.
The Bottom Line: Wiggle right on by it and find an activity board that's more engaging.
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| theeye's Full Review: Singin' Wigglin' Funhouse |
Have you ever walked up to a door, tried to pull it open and found that it just wouldn't budge? You pulled and pulled until a passerby, suppressing a smirk, told you to push. Your face, already red from exertion, reddened further from embarrassment as the door responded to the lightest of correctly applied touches.
It's happened to all of us at one time or another. In most cases, the embarrassment we feel is misplaced: the fault lies not with the user of the door, but with its designer. Donald Norman's classic text, The Design of Everyday Things, explained the stunningly obvious, yet theretofore largely overlooked, reasons that perfectly intelligent, competent people are so frequently stymied by the simple objects they encounter every day.
Hey, what's with the book review? I thought this was supposed to be a review of the Fisher Price Singin' Wigglin' Funhouse? I didn't come here for any of that high-fallutin' talk! Where's my singin'? Where's my wigglin'? Where's my fun?
Wait! Don't hit "Not Helpful" yet. Bear with me a while, ok?
I am the proud mother of an absolutely adorable nearly-nine-month-old son. But I'm also an engineer -- and I've been an engineer for a lot longer than I've been a mother. In fact, the aforementioned adorable baby is the child of not one, but two engineers. So, it's only natural that when I review one of his toys, I consider not only the singin' and wigglin', but also the engineerin'. Toys, like other everyday objects, can be designed intelligently or not -- a few poorly designed details can make the difference between a useful (read: "fun") toy and a dud.
The Singin' Wigglin' Funhouse, alas, is about as well-designed as it is named. Which is to say, rather half-heartedly. Let's start with that name. Is it just me or does that name just scream out "I was named by a committee at the end of a really long and tiresome day"? Would someone please clue Fisher Price in to the fact that "Singin'" does not rhyme with "Wigglin'"? And, while you're at it, how about explaining to them that a toy whose musical and visual theme is "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" ought to at least try to allude to that theme in its name?
The Singin' Wigglin' Funhouse (in the interests of maintaining a shred of dignity, let's just call it SWF from now on, all right?) is what is known in the infant toy business as an "activity board". Head on over to the infant section of any large toy store and you'll find a large variety of these plastic rectangular toys, each outfitted with straps designed to secure the board to the inside of baby's crib. The idea here is to cleverly create the illusion that the crib is a fun playspace rather than a barred prison. (My son, for the record, is not buying into this notion.) "Activity boards", as the name implies, offer a variety of button-pushing, music-making, ball-spinning, rattle-shaking diversions while remaining safely and securely attached to the crib side.
The SWF meets the basic definition of an "activity board". The main attraction is the large, rather goofy-looking spider mounted in the center of the house-shaped board. Pull the spider down (his two inset eyes offer a convenient fingerhold for tiny hands) and he immediately starts back up, while serenaded by an electronic version of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider". There is no "water spout" evident -- this spider favors a more direct assault on the house. He's fast, too: the spider reaches the top of the house long before the music ends. If your child is anything like mine, this means that the spider will get pulled back down in mid-song resulting in a lovely skipped-record effect: "The Itsy Bitsy Spi..The Its..The Itsy B..The". The spider's legs wiggle ever so slightly while climbing the house, an effect which apparently impressed the designers so much that they named the whole toy after it.
To the right of the spider is a blue trackball sculpted with curved grooves in a contrasting yellow color; the track ball can be spun directly or by pressing a lever located beneath it. A quick press on the lever does get the ball spinning quite quickly, which actually creates a fairly neat-looking effect. This is the one part of the toy that I have to admit is pretty cool; my son figured it out very readily and continues to enjoy spinning the ball.
Beneath the trackball is a plastic piece with a picture of a snail. The piece can be moved from side to side (one might even call it "wiggling" if one were being generous). Yawn. In the lower center of the toy is a sliding, clicking piece. On the left is a rolling cylinder which generates some more barely perceptible wiggling, this time on the part of the three small plastic pieces above it.
And that's it for the "activity" part of the toy. There's a bit more "board" part (ever notice that "board" and "bored" are homonyms?), but nothing that actually does anything.
But wait! Take a close look at that picture. Didn't I miss something? Over there on the upper left, just above the three slightly wiggling plastic pieces. Notice the second spider head (or whatever that bizarre-looking creature is)? The one with the two inset eyes just like our friend the climbing spider?
My son noticed him too. My son, the child of two engineers (both of whom did very well indeed on the analogy portion of the SAT), recently noticed that this second spider head has exactly the same nicely inset eyes that the big spider has. The eyes which so conveniently serve as a handle to pull that spider down his imaginary spout. My son, the budding engineer, has very logically concluded that where there's a handle, there's an activity to be had. Every time he plays with this toy, he sticks a couple of fingers in those eyes and pulls with all his might. He just knows that something fun has got to happen. But it doesn't. And it won't. Because that tempting little spider head is completely stationary. It doesn't do a thing.
At the tender age of not-quite-nine-months, my son has already learned to draw analogies and extrapolate from previous experience (hey, I'm a proud mother and I'm allowed a little hyperbole when it comes to my son, ok?). Unfortunately, his experience now includes the baby version of standing at that poorly designed door and pulling to no avail. This toy is not just boring -- it's downright deceptive!
So why do we have the SWF? Yes, you guessed it: it was a gift. And the truth is, our son does get some enjoyment out of it: he plays with it briefly each night just before going to bed (it does have the virtue of being sufficiently uninteresting that it doesn't hold his attention for too long at bedtime). If you receive one as a gift, by all means do hang it up in your crib.
But if you're planning on buying yourself an activity board, do yourself a favor and wiggle right on past this one. Find one that puts the emphasis on "activity" and not on "bored".
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): was a gift
Type of Toy: Baby Toy
Age Range of Child: 0 to 12 Months
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Epinions.com ID:
theeye
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Location: New York, NY (it's a hell of a town!)
Reviews written: 66
Trusted by: 165 members
About Me:
Company president, math geek, first time mom at 39, epinion addict. Sleep? Not lately.
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