Gear

This Farting, iPhone-Controlled Minion Is Our Kind of Robot

The gibberish-spewing creature teaches STEM coding with a side of farts.

by James Wohr
Updated: 
Originally Published: 
wowwee minion turbo dave

Today’s robotic toys are undoubtedly impressive. They’re walking, talking, thinking creations that respond to voice commands, teach coding, and even adapt to real-life situations. Still, even the best leave something to be desired, a certain box left unticked. What, exactly, is it that we’ve longed for, dear reader? Well, it was hard to say for a while. But now, the clouds have parted and the answer is clear: a programmable, hover board-riding Minion armed with a fart cannon. Now, is Wowee’s Minion Turbo Dave as high-tech and useful as, say, the most powerful STEM skill-building toys from, say, LEGO? Of course not. But it’s a Minion riding a hover board holding a fart gun.

Down to the goods. Created to align with the release of Despicable Me 3, Minion Turbo Dave is not only equipped with the standard suite of smartphone controls (he spins, he rolls, he boogies) but he (it?) also spouts classic Minion nonsense, comes with pre-loaded with games, and reacts to such gestures as clapping and waving hands. The manic, banana-obsessed creature also comes with a wide suite of innovative tools for STEM learning.

MORE: 8 Books For Kids Who Are Obsessed With Robots

Using the companion app, kids can program Minion Turbo Dave to act, emote, and respond to his environment. Through simple programming, he can be asked to, say, start rolling when someone claps their hands, giggle when someone pokes his round yellow belly, or fall over and unleash a squeal and a fart when someone waves their hand. Designed to make coding easy and fun for kids, the Minion Turbo Dave app lets kids stack commands and actually teach the toy to react to its environment independently.

Now, about those fart abilities. Minion Turbo Dave comes armed with various ways to break wind. But bring another Minion into the mix and, using a built-in game, the two of them can face off in a robotic butt burp competition for the ages. And because such action should be preserved, Dave comes mounted with a camera that captures the way his goggled eyes see the world. Oh how far we’ve come.

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