Mattel out to prove it can be as tech-focused and nimble as competitors

El Segundo, California

AS Gerry Cody, a senior design manager at Mattel, cheerfully loaded a live cricket into the driver's seat of a new toy car, the cricket probably did not have time to wonder how it had gotten to this point.

Mr Cody explained how the company had consulted an entomologist for the first time in its history to develop a battery-operated racecar with a compartment for a cricket, whose movements "drive" the car - sometimes into walls and chairs.