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Behind the scenes with Mega Bloks World of Warcraft
Last year at BlizzCon, Blizzard announced that Mega Bloks would be producing a line of World of Warcraft building block sets. Mega Bloks has just released a video that gives a "Behind the Bloks" look at the process. The headquarters of both companies are explored, and the actual fabrication of the blocks is demonstrated. Also showcased are the Deathwing Stormwind Assault and Goblin Zeppelin Ambush playsets. Andrew Sparkes, vice president of kid and collector brands at Mega Brands, Inc., narrates the video along with Nick Carter, vice president of art and cinematic development at Blizzard Entertainment. They discuss the timeline of the product, the relationship between the two companies and the inspirations behind the playsets. The Mega Bloks World of Warcraft website links to previews of the season one sets, which are due to be released some time this summer.
Project Blox is like any other toy that comes with 300 pages of documentation (video)
If your kid (or inner kid) turns their nose up at those delectable Sifteo Cubes, it'll obviously be because they want open source smart building blocks instead. So oblige the budding geek with Project Blox, courtesy of electrical engineering students at the University of Texas at Austin. Every toddler-friendly block has its own LCD and touch panels, plus motion sensors and wireless comms that let it interact with other blocks in weird and wonderful ways -- like the maze game you'll see in the video after the break. Project Blox is still very much a project, unfortunately, but its creators have put all their code and schematics online so baby Einstein can have a go at building his own.
