Awesome Toys

After engineering NERF darts that can fire themselves, Joel Creates thought he’d try the same with those larger NERF missiles. Typically launched with a pump-action weapon, Joel’s capacitor- and flash cotton-powered missile launchers are self-contained and launch with the push of a button. Those wrist-mounted launchers look super cool too.

The trend of brand biopics continues with this movie about the meteoric rise and fall of Beanie Babies. It follows the story of toy salesman Ty Warner, who worked with three women to create this pop culture juggernaut of the 1990s. Stars Zach Galifianakis, Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Snook, and Geraldine Viswanathan and premieres 7.28.23 on Apple TV+.

Process X visited Marusho Co., a Japanese factory that makes metal toys. During this production run, you’ll see how they create tiny airplanes by cutting sheet metal into strips, stamping their fuselages, and assembling the parts. It’s amazing to see how much handwork goes into creating each toy.

MicroCoaster’s miniature roller coaster kit lets you create custom tracks from over 900 parts, with 19 feet of track and a battery-powered lift hill. The S-scale coaster that rolls on its rails was inspired by Cedar Point’s Maverick coaster and rolls on 30 steel wheels. The initial batch is sold out but subscribe to their newsletter for updates on more releases.

Those Kenner Star Wars AT-AT toys were awesome to play with, but we had to use our imaginations to get them to walk as they did in The Empire Strikes Back. For engineer James Bruton, that wasn’t good enough, so he got to work rebuilding a version of the imperial walker with a servo-powered drivetrain that lets it really walk.

Artist Duane Perera is a master at his craft. He makes playful miniature scenes inspired by pop culture. Each diorama features characters enjoying everyday life, like playing video games, listening to CDs, or record shopping. His making of video for his Scarface plays NES diorama is priceless. Duane sells prints of his work on Redbubble, and we want all of them.

When a problem comes along, you must whip it. Super7 pays tribute to the founding fathers of de-evolution with its first-ever Devo ReAction figure. The retro-style 3.75″ figure features the likeness of a young Mark Mothersbaugh donning his Devo Dome and ready to crack that whip. It even comes with a tiny bowl of whipped cream.

One of the more entertaining LEGO bricks is the 1×4 spring shooter that fires tiny plastic projectiles. Brickstory Builds thought it might be fun to assemble a bunch of these bricks and make them fire together. After building a wonderfully satisfying train, he built a wall of 400 and attempted to trigger them all at once.

The S adds to his arsenal with an impressive-looking cardboard machine gun that can rapidly fire numerous rubber bands. It has a motor drive mechanism that turns a pair of gears when its trigger is pulled, sequentially releasing 16 rubber bands in just a few seconds. We wonder if he could double or triple up on rubber bands or if that would jam it.

Despite what your eyes are telling you, the blue and red LEGO space explorer minifigs in this image are the exact same size. Mathematician Henry Segerman shows how perspective and a custom 3D-printed structure produce this mind-bending optical illusion.

NERF makes some cool blasters, but the custom community is always outdoing Hasbro’s factory toys. WalcomS7 shows off the world’s fastest NERF blaster, Gatling Tommy’s M134 minigun. The full-auto blaster has a 500-round capacity and fires 58 darts per second. It’s fed by a belt mechanism and an ammo backpack attached via a massive 3D-printed chain.

While you could buy a playable Pac-Man game for less money, the official LEGO version gives you the joy of assembling one yourself. The 2651-piece kit features a mechanical playfield and scoreboard, spinning Pac-Man and ghost characters on its top, and a light-up coin slot.

Funwhole’s building block sets give LEGO a run for its money with more precise parts and lighting. This 1741-piece camper van kit features a fully-furnished interior, working doors, LED headlights, and details like a roof rack, solar panels, and a canvas shade for its outdoor seating area. The finished model measures 14.9″ L x 8.4″ H x 8.6″ W.

This very special collectible from Mighty Jaxx and design trio Ilustrata celebrates three amazing things – Godzilla, sushi, and The Great Wave off Kanagawa. The limited-edition 10″ vinyl art toy features Japan’s iconic kaiju made of imaginary sticky rice, raw salmon, and seaweed strips and stomping through the bluest bowl of miso soup we’ve ever seen.

Canon and Takara Tomy teamed up to create this special Nemesis Prime Transformer that turns from a Decepticon into a Canon EOS R5 camera. When in disguise, the 80% scale camera looks just like the real thing, though sadly, it doesn’t snap photos. Preorder by 4.6.2023 for 1.2024 shipping.

Muppets fans will recognize these Super7 action figures as the members of Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. The Muppets ReAction Wave 1 set includes 3.75″ Kenner-style figures of the band’s leader, Janice, Floyd, Zoot, Animal, and road manager, Scooter. They’re also available individually, but why would you break up the band?