VISORAK come in a canisters much like those of the TOA HORDIKA. The big glaring difference is that bubble in the lid:
As you can see, the bubble holds a RHOTUKA spinner. The spinner is the one without the code. There is another coded spinner within the canister.
After opening the canister, you can remove the bubble from the lid to retrieve the RHOTUKA. Without the bubble, the VISORAK lid can hold up to six spinners. This lid-as-display idea has a long history in BIONICLE ® sets of course, but since all of the VISORAK RHOTUKA are solid silver in color, there does not seem to be any significance to the number six here.
Once you open up that canister, here is what you get:
Imatron especially wanted me to point out the three double-socket pieces. In VOHTARAK’s case, there are two long orange ones for the back legs and a short red one in the middle of his body to hold the two front legs.
Other pieces of interest are the mandibles, the feet, the chassis (my favorite), and that big head/body piece of course. I would have preferred two separate pieces for the head and body, but now that I have had some time to work with the VISORAK, I can understand why it is one piece. In fact, on the completed model, the head/body piece flips “open” like a BOHROK faceplate.
The VISORAK have two action features. The first is that you can press down on the VISORAK body and the mandibles will close, allowing you to grab any TOA METRU that might wander your way. This is accomplished by driving a wedge (on the inside of the head/body piece) between where the mandibles meet “inside” the body. The mandibles are held together by a rubber band, thus they open up again when you release the body.
The second action feature is the RHOTUKA spinner. When the rip cord is inserted, the thumb-grab resembles a tail and the tip looks like the VISORAK is sticking out a black tongue. You can, if you prefer, install the launcher sideways instead.
VISORAK are my RHOTUKA launchers of choice now. I can get a really good grab on the launch mechanism and yank out the rip cord quickly. The lip on the VISORAK body means that I can angle the RHOTUKA however I please. For a fascinating flight, I highly recommend launching your RHOTUKA horizontally.
Despite all of those advantages, I can still only launch a RHOTUKA about 10 meters (35 feet) instead of the advertised “15 m/50 ft”. I think perhaps that I need to go try it somewhere with thinner, drier air. If you are looking for a science project this summer and have access to the mountains and the beach, this might be just the thing for you. Do some experiments and send us your data. We’ll pass it on to our readers.
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