When it comes to industrial design, this is the one thing that has led the world in advancements in all fields, from medicine to mechanics from food processing to farming. It has opened up possibilities that for thousands of years would never be dreamed of. The industrial revolution surely has to be the most monumental point in history when it comes to world changes. Soon after this, machinery was developed to make so many aspects of life easier and this has simply progressed over the years to the point where machinery does pretty much everything.



Of course, this has had its drawbacks but then as a human race we are very adept at looking on the bright side and the fact that machinery is taking over the day to day tasks simply gives us more time to play. The invention of grown up toys is something of a recent phenomena and this is not only because of the fact that industrial design has bought us the machine to do everything but also because, in recent years, more people have had more disposable income than ever before.

The more grown up toys we have, the more design is required to not only better them in everybody's call for better technology and fancier gadgets but also for ways to produce the energy to run these toys. To that end, inventors have been working on batteries to run many things. Long before the grown up toys of today, inventors have been working on a form of battery since the mid 1700's until it has been developed to what we know and take for granted today as the disposable power source of an electric battery.

The Energizer battery enjoyed its most popularity after the 'Energizer bunny' was introduced. This television advert showed a collection of toy bunnies representing the never ending collection of children's toys that now require batteries. One of their most recent adverts showed a collection of these battery powered bunnies scaling a mountain side and the one with the Energizer battery made it when all the others failed.

However, as is usual with industrial design, there will always be competition and the Energizer bunny has just been beaten by a robot that contained batteries from Panasonic. The robot containing Panasonic batteries beat the Energizer and Duracell containing robots to climb the Grand Canyon in seven hours. This is quite some feat and gives all parents hope that they might be able to get through a weekend without a tantrum from their child that a toy is 'dead' because the batteries have run out of power.

Worse still for women is the man tantrum that his toys don't work. This is when they bash them in the vain hope that this will make them work. You will see this when the TV remote control gives up its batteries. The remote control is one of the slightly more pointless inventions of industrial design because you are never that far away from a TV that you couldn't get up and simply change the channels. But, no. Men just press the button harder and aim the remote closer to the TV until they get to within arm's reach of it and still are insisting on trying to force the remote to work. However, I digress.

Children's toys more often than not these days are equipped with battery departments so that the toy can either work on its own or produce entertaining lights and noises. Is it any wonder we are producing a nation of obese children and adults when we all expect to sit back and have things done for us?