 "Didn't work - total bologna." | 2009-11-09 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3HPEHASNSUVF |
| I got this as a birthday gift for my husband. It's not at all how it has been advertised. What a complete disappointment. |
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 "This toy might be a life-changing device" | 2009-11-07 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2YXC5TOTUE5DV |
If you know the premise of the toy, skip to the second paragraph. This toy takes a measure of brain activity in the left frontal lobe and, based on the amount of activity there, sends power to a fan (high power when high; low or off when low). This raises a foam ball in the air and a dial can be turned with the hands to move the ball through an obstacle course that arrange with detachable pieces.
I read the other reviews. They make some good points. This toy could get boring fast. The headset does get uncomfortable after about 10 minutes. The guy who said that all it does is measure stress is way off-base. He is right that the ear clips are used to complete a circuit, but that is not all this toy does. After playing it for awhile, I can say it responds negatively to stress (i.e., the ball lowers and the fan turns off). I'm basing that off of the fact the fan tended to turn off when I would get worried about it turning off. If it was responding to stress, the power should have increased.
So why am I recommending this toy? Because studies have shown that if you can increase frontal lobe activity through exercises like this, you can increase objective measures of concentration (e.g., amount of time engaged with a task) and decrease measures of impulsivity. And not just for the task where the skill was trained. So a child who got adept at playing this game should also pay better attention in school, likely increase their reading comprehension, do better on homework, etc.
My recommendation is that, if this is something that is interesting to you, you buy this toy for your child and that you play it with them. Set performance goals with them and give them some sort of reward for meeting and exceeding those goals. Start small. At first, get a stopwatch and see how long they can keep the ball in the air. After that, see if they can start to raise and lower the ball a couple of times, then see how many times they can pass it through one of the hoops. And take data the whole time. Chart their data in some way so they can see the progress they are making.
But get this toy!!! In labs where they do this sort of therapy, children with ADHD have shown serious improvement in functioning. Some kids are able to get off meds altogether.
If you want to do a little extra research before purchasing, go to wikipedia and search neurofeedback. There's a good synopsis there with links to some peer-reviewed research at the bottom.
Scott Herbst, Ph.D. (in behavioral psychology) |
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| "Spring the intelligence in a child" | 2009-11-06 |
| - Reviewed By User: A2O2N95RK7V2YU |
This toy is an amazing gift and will definitely blow you off your feet with disbelief. It is some amazing engineering and it will be a lot of surprise for kids and even for many adults. You can be innovative and design many plans and games out of this kit. [There are a lot of small components and you can easily lose them, not suitable for small kids under 5 years]. There is no multi player mode, you have to take turns to play with the sensors. It will be awesome if you have a lot of people to watch you move the ball through the rings. As a single player you could get bored after an hour or even less.
This game can bring in some amazing new thoughts in to a child's mind and springs new ideas from the child. If your kid is in school and is amazed by science, this toy can have a lot of impact.
On the engineering point of view, this toy may not be actually playing with your brain waves. You can remove the headband and still move the ball with your arms.
[...]
Mediocre durability, Amazing creativity, not too exacting on the batteries too. I would rate it a perfect 5 and a perfect novel idea for a toy. |
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 "Interesting, but not great." | 2009-11-05 |
| - Reviewed By scottjl262 |
| I think this is more of a biofeedback machine than any sort of game. You only control how high the ball rises and lowers (the pressure of the air stream). Moving it around the ring and through the obstacles is done by turning the knob on the base. Takes a ton of batteries, makes a lot of noise, and some times seems more off in it's readings than it's on. Seems to work backwards for a friend of mine (concentrating lowers the ball instead of raising it). Interesting for about 30 minutes and you probably won't use it again. Lots of small and fragile plastic parts for the obstacle course. The different "games" aren't really all that different. Worth about $30 rather than the $80 they want for it. |
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 "Review of the Mind" | 2009-11-03 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3C4W93N1LRGZE |
This game was featured at comicon in San Diego this summer. The kids did not have time to stand in line to try it
although they really wanted to try it. Since I buy a game each year for them, it seemed the perfect gift. |
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| "Jolivette Mind Control" | 2009-11-02 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1WJXH598S3I89 |
We used this toy to better our abilities at controlling the enemy's minds! We've become much better at this skill, and plan to soon hatch our plan to take over the world!
MUhahahahaha...
Oh, and it's fun too. |
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