28 Jun 2015

Remote controlled robot

I have always loved robots. Maybe growing up reading Asimov and sci-fi movies may have something to do with it and ended up with a collection of several robot - battery operated flashing robots that made noises and moved around or even toys that looked like robots - including the popular Playskool Major Morgan, which was not actually a robot but a musical toy. I am not sure where they all went but I have not stopped collecting and still into robot, only thing is that they are a bit more sophisticated now.

My daughter's birthday is coming up soon and no I am not going to give her a Frozen toy - she's just not into them. I think I might have found the perfect gift: A robot or more precisely a remote controlled robot. The RC robot from Thinkgizmos.com is available on Amazon.com for just $39.99 with free shipping (down from the original price of $69.99). The robot walks and talks - lines like "Freeze!" "Identify yourself or I will shoot" and "Surrender now!". You can also fire small plastic discs from it's chest when you press 'fire' on the remote and and it even dances. You can even programme the robot to do stuff on its own.


Made in China, the robot is about 30cm tall and requires 6 AA Batteries (not included). It is suitable for ages 3 and above - so great fun for everyone.

If you are in Europe you can order the robot from Amazon.de.

Looks like I am going to end up buying two - one for my daughter and one for myself.

19 Jun 2015

Casio G-Shock GA - 100MC - 1 AER dive test

I recently went on a long overdue week long holiday with my family and decided to get myself certified as a PADI open water diver as well. I took only my Casio G-Shock GA - 100MC - 1 AER watch and decided that it would be great to actually test out whether it was really water resistant to 200M. I only found out later that 200M water resistance means that I can use it during swimming, snorkeling, jet-skiing but not while scuba diving. For scuba diving (with air tanks), you are supposed to wear watches with the words "DIVER'S WATCH 200M".


The maximum depth I went down to was around 17 meters and the watch survived the dive. Legibility was good but I realised that the lights were not very useful when using the digital timer.


The only Casio watches which are certified "DIVER'S WATCH 200M" are those in the Frogman series. The latest model is the GF-1000-1 which is now on my wish list. A few older models are available on Amazon UK.


Unlike other G-shock models which are held by 4 screws, the GF-1000-1 features a Screw Lock Back. The back and bezel are made of diamond-like carbon that resists scratching and wear.

Other features include Moon Phase Graph, Moon Age Indicator, Tide Graph (very useful), World Time and 5 alarms. It is solar powered (Tough Solar). Specifically for divers, useful functions include Dive time and surface interval measurement function. It records one set of data (dive time, dive start time, dive date) in it's memory. This watch is not meant to replace the Dive computer but as a backup.