The Bug Racer is Mattel's $50 electronic "science" car toy that requires that you fill a sensor cavity with up to six crickets; the toy measures the crickets' movement in the cavity and uses them to guide the car's movements (though the car will reverse when it hits an obstacle, regardless of the crickets' movement).
Many kids handle crickets as part of the care of their pet reptiles (and other animals, such as hamsters, if you're ambitious). It's likely that these crickets aren't transported to pet-stores or pet owners' homes with a lot of care and thought for their well-being. And the Bug Racer comes with a set of guidelines explaining to children how to handle crickets humanely (except for the "putting them in a Bug Racer" part).
Nevertheless, the whole system feels distasteful. It seems unlikely that the crickets understand or enjoy their ride, and confinement in the sensor cavity can't be the best experience for an animal that normally roams over large fields (again, though, this confinement is not any worse than confinement prior to being dropped into an iguana's terrarium).
There are four driving modes. “Cricket In Charge” means you let the crickets take the wheel and watch the car spaz out. “Drag Racing” sets the speeders on a straight-line course so you can stage a 10-second palp-to-palp race. “Autodrive” lets the car drive cricket-free. The weirdest mode of all is option four: “Light Show.” This lets kids “use the lights and music to better observe your cricket,” in case you want to see it … dance?
Um So the Bug Racer Is an Actual Toy Car Driven by Crickets [Jordan Crucchiola/Wired]
