
A Live Cricket Steers Mattel's New Autonomous Toy Car - jacquesm
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/12/a-live-cricket-steers-mattels-new-autonomous-toy-car/
======
jacquesm
At least with this self driving car we know where the bugs are.

~~~
pdeuchler
Did you submit this article solely to make this comment? If so I'm fully
behind you

------
dsr_
PETA's going to hate this... and for once I'll agree with them. Sending kids
down the path of capturing and imprisoning creatures to use for entertainment
doesn't strike me as a good thing to do.

~~~
pvaldes
Let me introduce a different point of view.

A toddler will try to grasp any small and 'cute' animal at sight. Is part of
their human inquisitive nature. Children do not keep animals because all of
they are little sadist jailers; they normally do this because are curious,
want to understand any novelty around and have the basic impulse to protect,
make lots of 'pet friends' or even experiment playing parent roles (with their
'subrogated sons').

And this is good, not bad. Even if some random insect or snail die eventually.
This is totally the opposite of a sadistic behaviour.

Children feel the normal urge to explore, control and manipulate their
environment. A child that do not show any interest for the real world is
either autistic, sick, or have a serious problem that needs to be addressed
(like being abused for example). Therefore, parents have to teach them about
the typical outdoor dangers. This includes what animals to avoid at any cost,
and how to manage the other animals that could deliver a bite leading to a
sored thumb, like crabs or crickets.

To make a children responsible of the life of a pet and to teach him/her to
adopt a routine (of feeding, changing water and caring of their beloved pet)
is an invaluable experience that any boy and girl in the planet should have
once at least. Humans and errors are linked concepts. I think that is much
less traumatic for a boy to kill a short-lived cricket or grasshopper because
they forgot to refill a bowl with water the last weekend, than to kill a
canary or a cat by a similar mistake.

I think also that children need to understand that sometimes illness and death
happen. To avoid a children any (reasonable, controlled, human) exposure to
death will probably lead to a shelfish or stunned adult that will not touch
their ill old parents with a ten foot pole. Everybody will die and our sons
need be armed psychologically against this moment of mourn and lose, and have
the opportunity to learn from family and adult friends what to do about this.

A pokemon or virtual pet can not provide the same experience. Life is not like
a video-game that can be reiniciated as many times as you want, and children
need to understand that when a pet die will not return to life again pressing
some buttons, that is lost, and that to feel bad about this is normal.

~~~
pvaldes
And now lets talk about the toy. I thing that is ugly, smart and reasonably
well designed.

In some countries to keep crickets as pets is not a such bizarre idea. When I
was young I shared a few black shiny and big-headed cricket pets with my
brothers. After hoping for hours in shorts, up and down the meadow, we
returned to home and show our treasures: a wall lizard nest that we keep warm
and wet until eclosion, three yellow and white butterflies, several
grasshoppers and crickets... Males and females are easy to identify. Two males
can not be put in the same cage and want to live isolated most of the time. We
hunt and keep them for a while before to be released again in the meadow. Boys
nowadays just keep excited pressing buttons all the evening instead, a really
sad way to spend a glorious summer evening in my opinion. We liked to hear it
singing in the balcony at night, is a relaxing sound. You could go to a news
stand then and buy small plastic cages specially for housing crickets.
(Cardboard boxes are just not good enough, because crickets will chew a hole
in a coin and escape).

I can't help to point that this toy is a luxury palace for a cricket by
comparison with our small cages. Well shaded with generous inner space and
imitating a burrow. For most children living in a big city in a crowded
apartment those are ideal pets for newies, more convenient and less demanding
than a bored cat or dog.

------
Mister_Snuggles
The two comments posted (so far) on Gizmodo nail it for me:

> This seems sort of sadistic.

> > Yeah, just another case of man using world's creatures for his amusement.
> It's a bit sick really.

~~~
roywiggins
Is it much worse than an ant farm? I think it is probably a bit worse, since
at least with an ant farm ants are doing ant-related things, even if it's
behind plastic.

~~~
idbehold
Don't ants have food in their ant farm?

~~~
vanattab
They mentioned there being a "feeding chamber" on this toy as well.

------
jff
Seems like a really odd target market: kids who don't think bugs are gross,
have moms who'll allow a box of live crickets in the house, have easy access
to a source of live crickets, have parents who aren't totally weirded out by
the idea of feeding a constant stream of crickets into this thing for a
child's mild amusement as it rams into a table leg over and over again.

~~~
yareally
Most likely they'd be playing with it outside (if kids still do that
nowadays).

~~~
jff
Yeah but they're probably going to store their little collection of cricket
pilots in a box inside the house... and if I know kids, they'll plop down at
the kitchen table to load up a cricket before heading outside to play.

~~~
yareally
Perhaps. I used to collect bugs in a jar (then release them later) on my
parents' farm, but never brought them inside. However, can't speak for all
children though.

My brother on the other hand, I could see him doing something like what you
described when he was a kid though.

------
mchahn
That is obviously a joke. Mattel would never produce such a crappy ad.

------
jeffehobbs
This seems fucking wrong.

