When I first heard of Mattel's Mindflex last year, I knew I had to get my hands on one. A toy that uses EEG technology to read brainwaves, looks like magic, and comes with a fashionable headset? What's not to love? Unfortunately, it proved to be a long, cold, telekinesis-free winter, with the coveted game sold out everywhere. Finally, just this month, with the Christmas season over and outrageously overpriced eBay sales waning, the game is back in stock, and the Studiothink team got a chance to put their brainpower to the test.

The idea behind Mindflex is relatively simple. According to their website, it "uses a variation of EEG technology to 'read' the intensity of brainwaves via sensors positioned on your forehead and ears....Once the headset recognizes your brainwaves, it transmits a signal to a fan within the console. This fan controls ball levitation. Your brainwaves, in turn, control the power of the fan. The more effectively you concentrate, the stronger the fan blows and the higher the ball floats. Relaxing your mind relaxes the fan's airflow, which lowers the ball."

So how did the team do? Mike and Rob proved to be instant masters with the device, and were quickly able to kill the fan or push it to its highest level after a bit of practice. Sherry, with a steely look of concentration on her face (see above) was also able to move it quite well. Being the highly-organized one of the group, it wasn't surprising that Sarah had a hard time shutting her brain off - the ball rarely left the maximum height of the device. Finally, the more serene Caitlin had a bit of trouble getting the ball floating, and struggled to push it to the higher levels.

Sherry's considering getting one for each team member in the office so she can keep tabs on how much brainpower we're using throughout the day. Of course, in the interest of helping the team achieve a more zen-like state of mind, we could always turn the machine into an evil ectro-shock device...