Roboflop

My son's a big fan of cars and he loves robots, so it's not a huge stretch to assume he'll enjoy a car that turns into a robot. The upcoming live action Transformers movie has meant that the form-changing toys have enjoyed a resurgence, and it was only a matter of time before he got one.

My mum tipped me off that she'd bought him one as a treat last week before she packaged it up to send from England. Rather than spoil the surprise, I decided to stay quiet about it.

This morning the toy arrived, and since my son was at day care I thought I'd get myself accustomed to changing the car to a robot and back again.



[I'd just like to break here and say that this exercise was intended to promote maximum enjoyment for my child, who was sure to want to see the transformation performed smoothly over and over again. I wasn't just playing with the robot while he was out. Nuh-uh.]

So here it is ... Behold Swindle, the robot who disguises himself as a jeep:

Yeah. That's what I thought.

I'm no technical genius, but I'm also no idiot - how an engineering graduate, let alone a small child, is supposed to make these things work beats the hell out of me. After half an hour of twisting bits of car into bizarre shapes that may or may not be feet, and staring at instructions that make the hieroglypics in IKEA flatpacks look like My First ABC, I gave up and turned the thing back into a jeep.

When my boy gets home in a couple of hours he's going to be thrilled with his new toy car. He'll roar it around the kitchen floor while I make tunnels for it out of cereal boxes, he'll drive it all over his sister and eventually he'll go to bed hugging it, blissfully unaware that it even has the capability to turn into a heavily armed battle droid.

Alternatively he'll take one look at it and instantly know how to go from car to robot to washing machine and tumble-drier.

I'm so past it.