Thursday, July 15, 2010

Cool down on a hot summer day with the splash pod

Heatwave, every year we get a few. Those warm days are welcome but it's sometimes hard to find a way too cool down. As kids, we use to take a swim or play with water balloons. We used to toss the balloon around until it would fall and break. That was grate fun but making water balloons was lot's of work. After playing it required some effort to find those tiny pieces of plastic. A few months ago, it was my nephews birthday and he got a splash pod as a gift from a friend. They played with it and enjoyed themselves. 2 weeks ago I walked trough the toy shop and bought one of these.

The idea and use of the product
The ball consists off 2 soft rubber halves. The 2 halves match. Each half has an arrow on top. The 2 half's need to be filled in a bucket of water. Close the halves and make sure the arrows on top point to the same direction. Push on the top of the smallest half, it creates a vacuum. Now toss the ball around, when the vacuum brakes, someone get's wet. The ball can be filled up again.

Technical information and price

This ball can be bought in 6 different colors. It's measurements are: 4.5 x 2.2 x 7 inches. The manufacturer has it own site, it can be found on: www.basicconcepttoys.com.
I bought this toy in a toy shop as a bargain, it cost me € 6 which is about £ 5. The splash pod can be found on Amazon.com, or at Ebay. At Ebay search for splash pod, splash ball or splash it. It can probably be bought in a toy shop but I'm not a resident of the UK so I don't know for sure.

My opinion
When I got to the shop to buy this, there was only 1 piece left. I didn't like the color but it was hot outside so I could use some cooling down. It was not expensive considering the fact it van be endlessly reused. When I came home I read the instructions on the package. I filled up the toy but when squeezing a half, it would not create a vacuum. Every time the ball was thrown, it would fall apart. Not quite how it was supposed to be. I started surfing the Internet to find out if I did anything wrong. I found a commercial where I saw them squeezing one half into the other to create the vacuum.So I tried it like this. It still would not work. The next day my nephew was playing in his swimming pool so I gave him the ball. In the evening when emptying the pool, I wanted to show my sister how it did not work. Surprise surprise! The ball created a vacuum and ever since that afternoon it works how it's supposed too. Now we play throw and catch with it a lot. It is easy to fill the ball and fun to throw and see someone get wet. The ball does not hurt when it flies against my body ,that's because it's soft. If someone would throw hard, it would probably hurt. It does not leave any mess so no cleaning after playing. The toy's isn't to big so it can easily be taken on vacation, to friends or to a swimming pool. I even took it to a theme park. When I know it's going to be a hot day, I just put it in my backpack, it can't brake. I would recommend this toy, it is suitable for anyone who can throw and catch.

Toy website and commercial can be found on: http://www.basicconcepttoys.com/splash_pod.html

Advantages: Reusable, lots of fun
Disadvantages: Did not work immediately

Summary:
A reusable fun water toy for hot days


---This review has also been posted on dooyoo---

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