Gadgets for Geeks

Do you fluently speak an artificial language (klingon, or have created an artificial language of your own, for that matter?), worn more than two watches at the same time to know the time in two different time zones or just juice your brain to calculate the mean average time and are a regular participant in the Geek Kon?

I first heard about this toy about a year ago - in articles on EEG and new, creative uses for EEG training (generally referred to as neurofeedback).

To be honest, I wasn't aware that it had been released and came across it at Costco, which is currently selling it for just $33 (really)! So, I thought I'd buy one just to fool around with it - especially since I'm quite familiar with neurofeedback and also have my own eeg machine to use of home-training. While the "real" EEG device is far more sophisticated than this toy, I understood the premise behind how the Force Trainer works.

As neurofeedback requires patience and multiple attempts before you can begin driving your own brainwaves (especially since you don't "feel" anything), I was prepared for this to be somewhat difficult. To begin, I let my boy try it out first (kids usually respond quicker than adults, especially at first) and he was able to use "the force" within ten to fifteen minutes - now, he can do it much faster. So, after seeing his success, I gave it a try. Again, it was difficult at first but, with practice, I too was very successful!

I strongly suspect that some of those who have left negative reviews have done so because they honestly don't know what to expect and give up too quickly. At the moment, I'm looking for information on what frequencies are being trained (again, I suspect beta waves - probably those in the low beta range [SMR]).

Assuming the SMR (sensory motor rhythm) is being trained, a relaxed but focused state is required. It's also possible that slower brainwaves may also be used by this toy (particualarly alpha waves) as those indicative of a relaxed state. I've got to look around a bit more to find out what the Force Trainer uses for their target brainwave(s). My recommendation is that if you are not having success with this toy, keep trying as you will eventually be successful (and have a lot of fun, once you are).

If you know the premise of the toy, skip to the second paragraph. This toy takes a measure of brain activity in the left frontal lobe and, based on the amount of activity there, sends power to a fan (high power when high; low or off when low). This raises a foam ball in the air and a dial can be turned with the hands to move the ball through an obstacle course that arrange with detachable pieces.

I read the other reviews. They make some good points. This toy could get boring fast. The headset does get uncomfortable after about 10 minutes. The guy who said that all it does is measure stress is way off-base. He is right that the ear clips are used to complete a circuit, but that is not all this toy does. After playing it for awhile, I can say it responds negatively to stress (i.e., the ball lowers and the fan turns off). I'm basing that off of the fact the fan tended to turn off when I would get worried about it turning off. If it was responding to stress, the power should have increased.

So why am I recommending this toy? Because studies have shown that if you can increase frontal lobe activity through exercises like this, you can increase objective measures of concentration (e.g., amount of time engaged with a task) and decrease measures of impulsivity. And not just for the task where the skill was trained. So a child who got adept at playing this game should also pay better attention in school, likely increase their reading comprehension, do better on homework, etc.

My recommendation is that, if this is something that is interesting to you, you buy this toy for your child and that you play it with them. Set performance goals with them and give them some sort of reward for meeting and exceeding those goals. Start small. At first, get a stopwatch and see how long they can keep the ball in the air. After that, see if they can start to raise and lower the ball a couple of times, then see how many times they can pass it through one of the hoops. And take data the whole time. Chart their data in some way so they can see the progress they are making.

But get this toy!!! In labs where they do this sort of therapy, children with ADHD have shown serious improvement in functioning. Some kids are able to get off meds altogether.

If you want to do a little extra research before purchasing, go to wikipedia and search neurofeedback. There's a good synopsis there with links to some peer-reviewed research at the bottom.

Scott Herbst, Ph.D. (in behavioral psychology)

I'll start with the drawbacks. For the REALLY minor stuff, only power chords can be played, there's no way of palm muting or playing anything other than a sustained note, and you're limited to one octave. That's not a big deal for what's essentially just a toy and not exactly meant to be a replacement for a real instrument. In fact, I wouldn't have taken off a single star if it was just those issues. There are two slightly more annoying drawbacks that cost it a star though.

1. The responsiveness isn't great. the "frets" don't respond that well and there are times when strumming was iffy as well (rarely not registering a strum, but sometimes registering two when I only strummed once).

2. Washing can make for an annoying time. The neck and the amp are removeable fairly easily so you only wash the tshirt itself, but the cord for the amp runs through this cloth tube on the inside of the shirt that's a real pain to feed it through. Now that I think about it, I don't see why they couldn't have had just a little hole in the shirt where the amp wire meets the guitar-neck wire, rather than having to feed it through that tube. This CAN be avoided by simply plugging the amp into the neck and just leaving the cord hanging out, but then you risk the wire getting caught on something.

Onto the good. The tiny little amp can actually pack some serious punch (it goes to 11, so naturally Nigel Tufnel would be proud). There's a tone knob too, but it's very limited. If the amp that comes with it just isn't rockin enough for you, easily the best feature is the output. Most people will probably just end up using this as a headphone jack, but if you have an actual electric guitar amp you can actually plug it in using a 1/8"-1/8" cable with a 1/8"-1/4" adapter. I know, if you have an amp, then you probably have a guitar already, so what's the point of this shirt? Plain and simple, it's fun, regardless of whether or not you own a guitar. Besides, there's just something magical about running this t-shirt through a 100 watt half-stack and actually using effects with it.

Overall, I feel it's worth the price and is a lot of fun. You've got to take it for what it is though, a REALLY fun toy, which you just happen to be able to wear. You might not be able to whip out sick solos, or even mildly intricate lead lines, but believe me, everyone will get a kick out of watching you bust out the main riffs to Smoke On the Water and Enter Sandman on your shirt.