https://stonesoup.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Podcast-3.m4a Welcome to A Collector’s Armory! This is a podcast about collecting different things throughout the stages of life. The name of this episode is Pre-Tween Collecting. I’ll be your host, Ayaan Pirani, and in this episode we will be covering what 6-9 year olds collect. I’ll be talking about what is commonly collected at this age and what my friends and I collected at that age. I will also talk about why kids collect these items plus a few bonus things. When I was a 6-9 year old kid I collected Pokemon cards, fidget spinners, and beyblades. A lot of kids get ideas to collect items from other kids. This can occur because they become inspired by what other kids are using. This can lead to children connecting with other people and developing new friendships. On the other hand, kids may collect things because they are jealous of what others are collecting. This may lead to arguments between kids and result in breaking of friendships. Thankfully, this never happened to me. Children who collect out of jealousy should reach out to others and collaborate and bond over collecting rather than making collecting a competition. As a child, I lived in a fantasy world over Pokemon cards. These cards demonstrated high value to me as they showed amazing, powerful creatures that never existed before. During my time as a kid, everyone traded and battled with Pokemon cards–if it was after school, during bus rides, or even during class. They were so valuable to me that every time I received an allowance I begged my parents to take me to Target or Walmart. Kids would go out of their way to get new cards even if it was scamming another kid in a trade or just straight up stealing another kid’s cards. Pokemon cards had a big effect on people’s childhood. Many children at this age also collected fidget spinners. Even though all the hype has now died out, they are still collected by 6-9 year olds. This toy became a craze in 2017 due to kids spreading the word by mouth and others becoming jealous of others. These toys were eventually utilized for kids with ADHD and Autism but originated as toys for children to entertain themselves. Fidget cubes also became popular with children because it fascinated kids that they could flip switches and turn gears. All fidget toys were originally made to keep kids busy but quickly became a worldwide fad with adults participating too. Another toy that I was obsessed with and gazed over for hours was Beyblades. These spinning tops were a big part of what I did during and after school. It was very satisfying to watch the Beyblades battle. These tops were launched out of a plastic launcher that spun them into the arena. The game functioned when two competitors launched their Beyblades at the same time into the arena chanting… 3.. 2… 1… Let It Rip! They would then launch the tops into the arena waiting to see if their top would stop spinning first or burst into three pieces. Collecting these tops was based on the types of attack, defense, stamina, and balance. One type was not better than the other; however, some editions of the Beyblade were so powerful they could conquer the other types. This is your host Ayaan Pirani signing off for today. Next month we’ll be talking about collectibles for ages 9-13. Until next time then! See ya!
Pokemon
Level Up Your Gaming Experience, Lexing Liu, 11
From Metroid, the pixelated action-adventure game, to Minecraft, the freedom-filled sandbox game, there is no limitation to what games you can access. However, there is only limited time and resources to expend, so you must be careful about what games you decide to play. Mario Kart, Pokémon, and Ringfit are all games you can access on the Nintendo Switch, the current most popular console, so we will center around these games. Mario Kart is a deceivingly complex game. I mean, what difficulty can you have driving around a racetrack? If you find yourself in the path of a red shell, what can you do? How can you turn efficiently? There are many tips and tricks to see. To start things off, one thing you may not have noticed while playing in-game is using an item to block another. Sure enough, if you hold down the item button, you can keep the item safely behind your back to defend yourself from a potential attack which would slow you down a lot, especially if your vehicle has slow acceleration. Even the blue shell, which specifically targets the player in first place, can be deflected using a boombox item, although these are hard to come by from the random item generator. There are further reasons this game is more complex than it looks. For one, you can drift. Holding the drift button while turning lets you drift, and you get a temporary speed boost when you release it. The longer you hold the button, the stronger the charge gets, and you just might be able to get the fabled PURPLE DRIFT. These are the two most well-known tips in Mario Kart, but there is a deeper purpose in this game and more tricks lie ahead. Not only can you play this locally with your friends on one console, you can connect across town to play online races (despite slight lag). Alright, if you prefer quest games, Pokémon might be the game for you. Now, this is no Pokémon card game. The characters are the same, but there is PLOT! There are also various battle gyms where you challenge the gym leader and raids where you fight 4v1 against a powerful wild Pokémon. If you play the newly released version, there are power ups, which give your ride Pokémon special powers and there is more challenge with a new villain team out there. There is a Terestal phenomenon where you can change the type of your Pokémon entirely, which gives each battle a twist. The humor and the challenge keeps you with the game, and gives you an entirely new perspective from which you can see the unfolding action. As great as these games are, both have a hefty price tag of sixty dollars. This is often an unfriendly punch towards your wallet, and you may want to hover around the free games, but the free games have more in-game purchases that harm your wallet further than these one-time purchases. Although these games cost a lot, they are easily worth saving up for because of the enjoyment you get from playing them. There are many games to choose from, but there is only enough time and resources for a few of the best games, and these are two of my favorites.
