Toy car powered by a hamster wheel

The Critter Cruiser Race Car is a toy car powered by a hamster wheel -- for when your hamster gets tired of rolling around the house in his little ball. Link (via Gizmodo)

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arbitraryaardvark

http://xkcd.com/413/
Avram

Having this on a track sounds like a pretty good way to give the hamster the illusion of running around in a larger space while still keeping him in one room and out from underfoot.
Antinous

Has Hiro Frumentius seen this?
deweyeyed

Does it come with the crash helmet? And how do you get the hamster to keep it on?
Jodi

I agree that this kind of thing is more for the humans’ enjoyment, much like the
Critter Operated Chopper (motorcycle) that I have for my hamster.
Lastard

there is a slightly bigger version of this (steerable!) which i came across at a trade fair in geneva…

http://www.fleethorse.com/
efergus3

With the price of gas getting forever higher, a version for people should be coming soon.
doplgangr

i had one of those for my pet rats; it didn’t work very well. they liked the ball better.
Spike Curtis

How does it steer?
Fee

Judging by the reviews on Amazon, it doesn’t steer and only has a forwards and backwards motion, meaning that you have to rescue the hamster everytime it runs up against something. It seems to be a cool idea but a poorly executed hamster toy. The balls enable a hamster to reverse or walk away from a corner or obstacle, so they can rescue themselves… although you have the danger of a Stephen Fry coming along and mistaking the ball for a football and booting it out of the window, as he claims to have done with a friend’s (inhabited) hamsterball. He claims the animal suffered no ill effects, but it must have been a particularly soft landing for that to have been the case: they’re pretty brittle.

I’ve always been in favour of child-sized hamster wheel pods being installed on the side of houses, so that children can put their excess energy to good use….
akersj

My sister actually owns one of these, it doesn’t steer as such but you can buy an additional track that it can run round – the corners are smooth enough for the car to skid steer round. Her hamster seems to activelly get in the car out of choice when it spots it?!
stinkyweezleteet

We had one, unfortunately the hamster is no more (nothing to do with the car though).

Didn’t much like the lack of steering, but otherwise he seemed to quite enjoy the experience (he told me all about it).

And here he is!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk9KSBW_2o8
Cowicide

uh, if this doesn’t have radio controlled steering then why would any hamster want this?
cbth

Very cute! As others have said, the ball is probably more fun for the hammy — this is made to amuse humans more than hamsters, I think. But still cute as a novelty item. My son is a hamster fanatic. He even started a blog called “The Daily Hamster” (http://dailyhamster.com). So I’m guessing this’ll be on his Amazon Wish List soon. LOL!