Archive for the ‘Incomplete Gamer Junior’ Category
Toy Stories Challenge #5: Airfix Adventures
May 2nd, 2010 | 
Author: 
The paint’s almost dry on our fifth Toy Stories Challenge. If you’ve been paying attention (our web traffic would indicate you have), then you know that we’ve been inspired by the James May documentary series Toy Stories, to reconnect with the toys of our childhood. The cynical among you might have thought we were merely trying to occupy the minds of Incomplete Gamer junior during the school holidays and you’d be partly right. James May himself wanted to know if the toys and hobbies of years past could still hold the attention of the young kids bought up on a steady diet of video games with a side serve of video games. To answer that question ourselves, we’ve asked incomplete Gamer Junior to tackle all six of the Toy Stories Challenges. Today we’ve sent him to the lab with an Airfix model of the Republic P-47D Thunderbolt. Just how well did he micro manage his latest micro challenge you’ll just have to read on.
Posted in 
Toy Stories Challenge #4: Scalextric – Welcome to the Brickyard
Challenge #4 of the Toy Stories Challenge is done and dusted. For those not keeping score, here at the Incomplete Gamer we’ve been inspired to spend some quality time with some iconic toys and hobbies after watching James May’s Toy Stories TV show. His show’s a tribute to the toys of yesteryear including Britain’s best loved slot cars – Scalextric. The premise of James May’s doco is not simply to pay tribute to the toys and hobbies but find a way of capturing the attention and imagination of a younger generation more at home on the couch with a video game controller in one hand and a TV remote in the other.
Consider us captured. Since watching the show, we’ve set Incomplete Gamer Junior at total of four challenges, building a remote control Meccano car, making plasticine flowers (and assorted fruits), recreating an iconic video game scene out of Lego, and our latest project – an outdoor Scalextric circuit. Hit the jump to see how Incomplete Gamer Junior fared.
Toy Stories Challenge #3: Unchartered Lego
By now you know the drill. Inspired by James May’s Toy Stories, Incomplete Gamer Junior has been tackling various projects using the toys and hobbies featured in the TV Show.
With two Toy Stories Challenges under his belt, and the end of the School Holidays looming, Incomplete Gamer Junior turned his attention to Denmark’s most famous export, the Lego brick. Make the jump to see how Incomplete Gamer Junior fares with Toy Stories Challenge #3.
Toy Stories Challenge #2: Plasticine Dreams
One down and five to go. Inspired by James May’s Toy Stories TV show, Incomplete Gamer Junior is tackling six toy projects, using the six toys that starred in the James May series; Lego, Meccano, Plasticine, Hornby trains, Scalextric slot cars and Airfix models. James May’s show isn’t just a celebration of Britain’s best loved toys of yesteryear but a genuine attempt to introduce the toys and hobbies to a new generation.Yesterday we put our Meccano building skills to the test in the Incomplete Gamer laboratory. You can see for yourself how we fared.
Today it’s the turn of Plasticine. In the TV show, James May set himself the task of entering a garden made entirely of plasticine into the Royal Chelsea Flower Show. Our ambitions are a little less lofty…we’d settle for a small arrangement of flowers. Read on to see how Incomplete Gamer Junior and two enthusiastic assistants, more accustomed to building levels on Little Big Planet, fared moulding soft coloured clay.
Toy Stories Challenge #1: Meccano
The Incomplete Gamer is feeling inspired. We’ve just finished watching James May’s Toy Stories. The cynic inside us struggling to get out might have suspected this BBC series was just one long advertisement for Hornby – the British toymaker that now owns the iconic brands Scalextric, Airfix and Hornby Trains – three of the six toys featured in the show. Certainly the toys and companies featured must surely have seen a bump in their quarterly sales figures as a result of the show – the premise of which was to showcase a world of toys and entertainment long ago left behind in the dust by the current generation of children and adults too busy pressing buttons on game controllers, to be bothered actually getting their hands dirty and their minds engaged constructing fiddly plastic models.
In Toy Stories, James May doesn’t just get the toys out of the cupboard and give then a bit of a dust. It’s going to take more than that to reel in the youngsters. His hook is to ‘supersize’ the toys with projects which include building a full scale Lego house and a full size replica of the old Brooklands racetrack, constructed on the actual site out of Scalextric track.
To transform the ambitious dreams into the large scale reality, James enlists the help of project managers, architects, engineers, Scalextric geeks, and model railway nerds, school kids (many who seem to have never even heard of the toys in question) and the local community.
In as much as we, here at the Incomplete Gamer have been inspired to bring our own toys out of storage, and replicate James May’s series (albeit on a much smaller scale) we’re calling the show a ‘great success’. But the real test is to see whether 12 year old Incomplete Gamer Junior can be inspired to put down the controller and follow May’s lead. Sure, he loved watching the show, but will Incomplete Gamer Junior be inspired to tackle the mini ‘Toy Stories’ inspired projects we’ve lined up for him.
