The Best of Toy Fair 2020, From Baby Yoda to ASMR for Kids

3Doodler's 3D printing pen, which launched in 2013 after a successful Kickstarter campaign, is geared toward older kids and adults, so the new Build & Play ($30) is designed for kids as young as four years old. Because kids' motor skills aren't as developed, the pen has been redesigned to be easier to use. Instead of doodling material in the air, as with the original 3Doodler models, the nozzle fits into a tray of shapes and casts pieces. Rods of plastic go into the battery-powered tool, are warmed to 110 degrees Fahrenheit and are extruded into the trays. I squeezed some straight onto my hand and it didn't burn me, and the company assures me it's safe for young ones. (It's also non-toxic.) It ships mid-June.

Ali Kermani invented the Crazy Cart for adults who wanted a lightweight cart that you could drift. Now there's a kid's version called the Shift. Like the original, it's an electric cart with rear inline skate wheels mounted on casters, so you can whip the rear end around for ultra-tight turns. Because it uses an electric wheel hub motor, it accelerates much more quickly than a gas-powered cart, but you can toggle two settings to limit speed. The Low setting limits the cart to 2.5 miles per hour and lasts 80 minutes on a charge, while the High setting lets it go 8 miles per hour, but only for 40 minutes. The weight limit is officially 120 pounds, but I saw plenty of much heavier adults doing donuts on the demo cart. I might have been one of them.

You can buy the cart already on Amazon or Walmart for $189 or $179, respectively.

The Shifu Tacto turns any tablet, Apple or Android, into a gaming platform. Placing a figurine on the screen controls the game. With Snakes & Ladders, for example, you and your competitors move the pieces along a moving digital representation of the game board, while Laser involves positioning mirrors to reflect your laser beam into destroying incoming asteroids. Elements is a STEM game that teaches kids element structures of various chemicals. Quest, a simplified RPG, was the most interesting: 10 character figurines grant special powers as you navigate an open world. Each of the four announced game sets costs $60, but PlayShifu will be releasing more.

Disney has been adamant about calling The Mandalorian's ultimate marketing cornerstone The Child, but we all know him as Baby Yoda. Yeah, it's not Yoda because the show is set after Yoda died, but Baby Yoda sounds cuter, OK? A Mattel representative told me the company first found out about Baby Yoda when they watched the episode like the rest of us. By the end of the season last December, they already had a product developed. It comes in two versions: the eight-inch plush for $13 and the 11-inch plush for $25. The big one will be available in the spring and comes in packaging shaped like the hovering stroller that scooted him around all season. The little one will arrive in the fall. The eyes are made of glass and the lower part his body is full of beans, for stability. Just like the real Baby Yoda, probably.

If you've watched the BBC's hit show, Top Gear, you'll recognize the driver on the box as The Stig (who has, unfortunately, been cropped off above), the program's mysterious test driver. Now you can take over his job, at least on a mini scale. Lego has sold motorized vehicles you can build for a while now, but this rally car is the first one you can remotely control through a smartphone. Two electric motors give it all-wheel-drive, like a real rally car. Once you've built it, it's a little over 10 inches long, five inches wide, and three inches tall. It costs $130, is available now, and takes a fair chunk of your time (it has 463 pieces), but that's half the fun.

Another one in Lego's Technic line, the catamaran is Lego's first watercraft to actually float on water. Adjust the sails and daggerboards, aim for a balance of speed and stability, and then use the rudder to steer as you race other boats, ducks, or whatever. It's made of 404 pieces and measures more than 12 inches long, 17 inches high, and eight inches wide. It costs $50 for the unpowered kit, but the real fun happens when you add a Power Functions ($30) electric motor. You have to buy it separately, though.

This is pure 2020. ASMR sounds for autonomous sensory meridian response, and it's been a trend on YouTube. People listen to amplified sounds of various things for the pure pleasure of it. On the ASMR kit, there's a tiny microphone connected to a speaker as well as a tray you fill with included bits of foam and plastic balls; mix these into slimes of various viscosity. Then you hold the microphone to it while you press the bits with your finger—or press the microphone right into it—and listen to all the weird noises that result. Canal Toys' ASMR kit doesn't yet have a price or launch date, but it will likely release this year.

Embedded in the bottom of every iD car is an NFC chip that contains its own identification number. It tracks data such as how fast the car has gone, how far it's driven, and how many races it has won—all stored in the cloud. Unlike the battery-powered tracks from your youth where you just drop the car in, the Smart Track takes some skill. You have to press the pump to power the cars around the track. Too slow and your lap times will suck, but pump too fast and your car can fly off the track. It turns it into an actual race, even if you'll have to take turns setting lap times since the track is just one lane. You can buy it now on Amazon for $176. It comes with two iD cars, but you can buy extras for $5 a piece. Non-iD cars can use the track too, but you don't get the lap tracking.

You can build any one of these solar-powered robots with just one $25 kit, but it comes with a single solar panel, so you can only have one built and working at a time. There's no on-off switch; they just run anytime they're exposed to sunlight, but they're small enough that you can just pick them up when you don't want them to run off. It takes about 5 to 10 minutes to build each robot, and there's a 48-page booklet that guides kids through building them while offering scientific facts. The kit will be available in July.

Feel like the Battle for Winterfell totally sucked? Now you can reenact a new ending without bothering HBO with a petition. The Winterfell castle has a fully-detailed interior, and the undead Viserion has a 28-inch wingspan, making for some epic battles.

Microsoft is also releasing its first AAA Halo title since 2012 this year, called Halo Infinite. The Pelican aerial dropship and Warthog buggy are two of the coolest vehicles in video game history, and now you can reenact missions with this set. Mattel's Mega Construx has much more detailed characters because they're not limited by Lego peoples' barrel-shaped heads. Both the new Halo and Game of Thrones sets will be available sometime this year.

If this dino looks cuter than the ones that terrorized Isla Nublar in the original Jurrasic Park, that's because she's a tie-in with the animated Netflix children's series, Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous. Push on her tail and she'll open up her mouth, taking big chomps out of the air. Mattel had a little Jeff Goldblum figurine that I wanted to toss in there, but I wasted too much time trying to find him. She'll play catch if you toss the included plastic ribs into her open mouth. You can pet her and she'll give you an appreciative, playful growl, but if you bug her while she's eating she'll let out a pissed-off growl, just like the rest of us. Available this year, the Feeding Frenzy Indominus Rex will set you back $25.