Hex Bugs
One of Morgan’s new toys for Christmas were some Hexbug Nano’s. These were new to me, but they’re actually quite good. OK, they won’t compete with Lego, but there is something about them.
Hexbugs are toy ‘automatons’ that scurry around bumping into things and reacting to pressure. The original ones were quite a bit bigger than the Nano’s that Morgan got and reacted to other stimuli such as sound and light, but we think the Nano’s are better because they come with their own set of hexbug habitats too.
The Nano’s comes in a wide variety of colors and patterns that you can collect. They have a website where you can log them and play various games too. The Nano itself is about an inch long and shaped similarly to a microchip, with 6 legs on both sides. It moves by way of an offset motor, which causes it to vibrate up and down. The shape of the body and slightly angled legs help it move forward. Because of its design, it can flip itself over if overturned or placed on its back, (if it has new or recently changed batteries).
Here’s one of Morgans.
Hexbug Nano
There are two series of Nanos: NEWTON’s and GALILEO’s and it looks as though others are ‘in development’ – Clever marketing there as kids will want to collect them all. Newton series contains 5 categories of hexbug nanos (gravity, orbit, motion, calculus and refraction). Galileo Series also have 5 categories (astronomy, telecopy, trajectory, magnification and mathematics). There is a also a Mutation series of Nanos.
Morgan has 5 already, 1 Newton, Orbit and 4 Mutations. The one above is a blue Mutation.
For Christmas Morgan got a starter habitat set that consisted of three hexagonal ‘hives’ and a number of runs. He has since added to this by buying a larger elevation set that has more hives, more runs and the ability to build a second layer thanks to some riser supports and a spiral run.
Here they are with Morgan’s full Hexbug Nano Habitat set up! They are kind of cool as they roam around the habitat seemingly on little missions with minds of their own.
Hexbug Habitat
