{"id":12145,"date":"2014-07-15T07:55:21","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T07:55:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=12145"},"modified":"2014-07-15T02:57:09","modified_gmt":"2014-07-15T02:57:09","slug":"unplugged-a-bit-of-summer-archery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2014\/07\/15\/unplugged-a-bit-of-summer-archery\/","title":{"rendered":"Unplugged: A Bit of Summer Archery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"air_huntress_zcurve_product_copy\"<\/a>As I looked out at the summer rain today, I pondered what to do with my young grade school boys. \u00a0Looks like it\u2019s time to break out the bow and arrow and do a bit of indoor archery practice! No, I\u2019m not crazy, but I recently got a hold of some of the kid-friendly bow and arrow toys made by Zing Toys<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"zano_pkg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For today\u2019s rainy day, I was thinking of their \u201cZano Bow\u201d, a small plastic bow made specifically for indoor play. \u00a0The Zano is about a foot long and comes with two suction cup arrows. \u00a0The claim is a range of 30 feet. \u00a0However, even if one can set up a 30 foot section of their house, moderately high ceilings may be needed to stretch out all 30 feet. \u00a0Low ceilings may also limit range. \u00a0Regardless, the range of the bow is quite acceptable for indoor play. \u00a0\u00a0The bow comes with two suction cup arrows that seem to hold up to the claim they will stick to most any flat surface. \u00a0Arming the bow is easy, as the custom arrows have little \u201chooks\u201d on either side of the suction cup. \u00a0These hooks then grab ahold of two stretchy plastic loops in the middle of the bow that are attached to longer bands spanning the length of the bow. \u00a0These provide the power for launching. \u00a0This is great for making the bow easy to use, but I suspect it would be extremely hard to jury-rig a replacement if they were overstretched and broke. \u00a0The plastic bow does bend a bit when put under heavier stress so that will help ease the danger of breaking any loops. \u00a0(I haven\u2019t seen them break yet, so that\u2019s a very good sign.) \u00a0I would have reservations for the plastic bow for heavy use by older kids (college dorm, perhaps?), but it should hold up pretty well for the targeted age group (8-15yrs). \u00a0Another nice feature of the bow is its symmetry. \u00a0Since the top and bottom of the bow are the same, it is simple to turn it upside down so that it fully accommodates a left-handed shooter \u00a0When opening up the packaging be sure to save the back, as it is a ready-made target for indoor shooting. \u00a0I prefer a target I put together myself that is just a tad bigger, as it gives my younger archers a bit more wiggle room to try to \u201cscore points\u201d. \u00a0\u00a0At around $13 MSRP, I\u2019m tempted to get another one so the two boys can have a head to head competition. \u00a0It would also solve the limited (2 shots) ammo problem as I haven\u2019t been able to find any \u201cextra ammo\u201d packs for the Zano bow.<\/p>\n

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\"air_hntress_zcurve\"<\/a>As a surprise for a non-rainy day, I\u2019ve also obtained an Air Huntress Z-Curve bow. \u00a0Zing makes several types of each bow, and the Air Huntress line is all in pink and purple tones – presumably to piggyback on some of the female archery craze due to the Hunger Games movies. \u00a0(An \u201cAir Hunterz\u201d line has a similar line of bows in camo colors.) \u00a0The Z-Curve is the largest bow in the line and is almost twice as big as the Zano bow. \u00a0While I feel like I\u2019m holding some sort of fragile toy when holding the Zano, the Z-Curve is large enough for me to feel comfortable shooting (although it\u2019s obviously still small for an adult.) \u00a0The range of the bow is pretty good, while a really good shot might approach the claimed 125 feet, it can reliably go 50 feet even when shot by a fairly small child. \u00a0The bow comes with larger, but similar arrows to the Zano arrows. \u00a0These arrows also have the two front notches to hook onto the bow\u2019s two stretchy loops. \u00a0Holding back the base of the arrow and letting go makes for surprising accuracy. \u00a0One suction cup arrow and two \u201cwhistling\u201d arrows with soft tips are included. \u00a0There isn\u2019t much to shoot at outside that will hold a suction cup, but the whistling arrows are fun. \u00a0When just three arrows aren\u2019t enough, there are additional ammo packs for the Z-Curve for a little over $10. \u00a0The Z-Curve bow and 3 arrows run about $25 MSRP, a decent price for a fun little toy.<\/p>\n

\"x6_slide_show_pkg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I would be remiss if I didn\u2019t mention Zing\u2019s nifty little rocket launcher called the X6 Zoom Rocketz (yes, the company has a \u201cZ\u201d complex.) \u00a0It isn\u2019t a bow, but it is still some good fun. \u00a0It\u2019s a slighly modified take on the old foot-compressor air powered rocket. \u00a0Stomp on a small plastic \u201cbellows\u201d to launch a rocket high in the air. \u00a0What is special about the X6, is its rotating launch pad which rotates a new rocket into place using some of the air blast to launch the previous rocket. \u00a0Thus, six rockets on the launch pad can be launched in quick succession. \u00a0At first, I was disappointed in the performance of the rockets. \u00a0While I, an adult, could somewhat reliably get a pretty good jet \u00a0of air to get a high arc, it was very difficult for my early grade school boys to launch them very high. \u00a0However, after an hour or so of play, they became practiced enough to get some very good results. \u00a0The package claims the rockets \u201cblast up to 100 feet\u201d, which might be possible if angled sideways, but that would be a very optimistic vertical performance. \u00a0Regardless, the rockets would easily go high enough to be entertaining (or get stuck on roofs and trees if one isn\u2019t careful.) \u00a0The one flaw with the system is the rotating loader for the rockets. \u00a0Some launches performed fine, but did not trigger the rocket advance mechanism. \u00a0This was quickly rectified by simply smacking the launcher again (without a rocket) or by loading a rocket back on the current location and launching again. \u00a0Coming in at an MSRP of $30 it is just a tad pricey for what it provides, but I figure it comes close when I factor that it comes with six rockets.<\/p>\n

\"air_huntress_zcurve_product_copy\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Whether you\u2019re shooting arrows inside, or doing some outdoor archery or rocketry, Zing has a pretty good lineup of toys at a reasonable price. \u00a0These are not toys that are going to become family heirlooms, but if not purposely abused they should last a couple of good seasons.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I looked out at the summer rain today, I pondered what to do with my young grade school boys. \u00a0Looks like it\u2019s time to break out the bow and arrow and do a bit of indoor archery practice! No, I\u2019m not crazy, but I recently got a hold of some of the kid-friendly bow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[161,162,163,165,119,175,164],"class_list":["post-12145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unplugged-miscellaneous","tag-archery","tag-bow","tag-nerf","tag-outside","tag-review","tag-unplugged-miscellaneous","tag-zing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12145"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12157,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12145\/revisions\/12157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}