Well … no. What is meant is that it can drop up to 3 feet (off a bedside table, for example) without breaking.
As my daughter discovered, it is definitely obnoxiously effective.
Considering she likely behaved as the most effective alarm clock ever invented when she was a toddler, I’d say turnabout is fair play.
That’s for the best, really. If it /actually/ jumped upwards, it’s be breaking people’s stuff.
It’s already evil enough.
Possibly related: I’m a very good shot.
Gotta admit, “chase the alarm clock down and silence it before it finishes completely demolishing your house” would be a bit of a motivator.
I can personally testify to the awesomeness of this device; I use it as a backup alarm on days when I’m getting up abnormally early. Saved my ass from sleeping through work one morning.
Maybe we can interest General Dynamics in producing a ruggedized version. They’ve hardened all sorts of curious electronic gizmos over the years, for a price.
Better: take a look at how they do it, come up with generic methods how to ruggedize anything with hot glue, sugru, and a plasma cutter.
Babies?
Ugh…?
(The international version of “Excuse me, I do not understand, could you please explain?”)
The ruggedizing thereof. Though to be fair, they’re already pretty bouncy.
The problem here is, if you let the less self-ruggedized survive, it could weaken the subsequent generations and the species as a whole. And of course you get frowned upon if you suggest gene-engineering the inefficiencies away, so you’ll be stuck with them.
I had one of these a few years ago. First the wheels broke (it landed on a slant, with one wheel on a book and the other on the floor). No problem; you can lock the wheels and just have it make its R2D2 sounds.
But then I discovered something – part of what made me hate getting up in the morning was the whole “getting yelled at first thing” experience. People used to do it – now here I was getting a machine to do it in their place.
Now I wake up to the sound of gentle chimes, courtesy of my phone, and it actually works better.
If i remember correctly, the original Clockys were covered in fur – perhaps they just need to be re-fuzzified.
They can then also double as floor-wiping devices or mobile dusters.
I bought my sister one of these on woot way back when. It was great. It even survived her kicking it into walls. (I was more worried she was going to put a hole through a wall and lose my deposit than anything else. Luckily we lived in an old building with solid walls.)
Her initial design:
FTFY.
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