The Toothbrush Bug

On a boring night such as tonight, the girls had nothing to do and so, after some much tinkering, I decided to give them something new...

No, its not this Christmas ornament...

Nor the homemade Father's day cards...

Nor another round of mangoes...

Oh, OK. Another round of mangoes, then

But once the mangoes are gone, the night was still young and so, I brought out a toy for Kaelynn. Actually, it was for the girls but Kristine was nowhere to be found.

So, while she was playing with
a MacDonalds toy, I quickly
got out the new toy

And Kaelynn was bemused at it.

Was it because of its name, the Toothbrush Bug?

Actually, its original name was the Hexbot. And it
was being sold at Toys r Us for twice the price. But
for this version, they even gave you spare batteries
and a tiny screwdriver too.

Its a very small little bug which, for the life of
me, I could not understand how it could move.

I mean, how can this thing move at all. There are
no mechanism that I could see save for the green
rubbery 'legs'.

Wonder why it was called Toothbrush and not Hexbot
in this version? Apart from Copyright reasons, the toy
really looked like a toothbrush.

And when it was first switched on, the little darn
thing scooted around very fast. So, how does it do
that? Very simple. In actual fact, this is nothing
more than just a mobile phone vibrating motor
connected to a battery.

The vibrations from the weighted spindle
of the motor was transferred to the six
rubbery legs which then allows the toy
to 'move' about very fast. Never mind if
there is an obstruction as it will sort of
deflect itself. So, for the rest of the night,
we had a lot of fun, trying to catch it, push
it and so on.

The next morning, it was Big Sister's turn but she only
gave it a few minutes before losing interest.

1/35 M977 HEMTT

"This is going to be a very nice kit", I keep telling myself. Well, it HAS to be a very nice kit. Why?

Let me tell you this. When I buy plastic kits, I try to make sure they do not break the RM100.00 border. Which is not a problem with Chinese or Korean kits such as HobbyBoss, Academy and even Trumpeter. And as such when I saw this model, the M977 HEMTT (Heavy expanded Mobility Tactical Truck) by OSHKOSH, I knew I absolutely had to have it.

Or so I thought. There were two things which stopped me at Hobby HQ; It was out of stock and also, I would need to shell out RM140.00 for it.

And so, nevertheless, as usual, I did not give up. Actually, I had no intention to because this will not be another "I wanted this all many years ago" excuse. So, I waited until the opportunity came again. And came it did after a few months, that is.

So, what is so special about this truck? This is a Military heavy transport truck which can be adapted to different roles, go over any terrain, air-transportable and can handle 13-ton cargoes.

But what I was really interested was the shape of the vehicle itself. granted that in real life it looks huge, but I was paying attention to the front cab. My mind was already working way past overtime, thinking about modifying it to something more post-apocalypse. Something like, the Landmaster from the movie; "Damnation Alley".

Anyway, the only manufacturer for the HEMTT at 1/35 scale is Italeri. Growing up with Airfix, Matchbox, Tamiya and then Academy, I am a bit biased when getting kits not outside these manufacturers. And so, because this was the only kit in that scale, I had to bite the bullet.

First thing is, the size of the box is a bit
deceiving. I mean, for this size, there is
no way the truck is 1/35.

But the box does not lie. The model will be
28 cm long, about an inch short of one feet.

There are a total of five sprues; three goes into the
truck, one for the huge tyres and the fifth are for
the clear parts. I do not expect some photo-etched
parts for this model as with all Hobbyboss and
Academy models these days. It would be a bonus.

Its amazing that all these sprues are all packed within
the box no taller than 2.5 inches!

I am still amazed by the size of the model. Just to
appreciate how large the flatbed is, I used my foot
as comparison

In summary, after looking at the parts, I am quite satisfied. Although this is my first Italeri kit, I did not feel disappointed at all. As the cab area was my main focus, it was quite a pleasant surprise to discover that the driver's door can be posed open or closed. Anyway, its going to storage for awhile until I have the time to examine it more closely. At this time of the year, I am starting to get busy...