Hotwheels Playroom

First off, I must confess I may have been misleading with one of my previous posts at least concerning my knowledge of Hotwheels tracks; it is not very extensive.  I have always gravitated toward track building, whether it is for a car or a train.  And although I feel as if I have explained this before here it is again:

For Christmas, my nephew got a Hotwheels wall track from his parents or maybe it was Santa; not sure whom I am supposed to give the credit to.  I also got him a Hotwheels garage and several cars; oddly enough, I did not know what they were getting him and they did not know what I got him (I bought it at about the very last minute).  I had also got him a wall track, but I did not wrap it right away and so when me and my brother talked about it, he told me my nephew was getting too many presents, when compared to what his older sisters were getting, and that I could take it back if I wanted.

Anyway, the wall track he got from his parents I assisted in putting that together.  Although, I should probably say my brother assisted and I put it together.  The issue my nephew had with the tracks is that he does not completely understand how to operate them, he is not quite 4 and the package states for children 4 and up.  A loop that was rubber-band wound to push a car through it had to be removed from the track because he could not use it.  Therefore, I was left to improvise or deviate from the set instructions.  I probably would have done this anyway, but this has allowed me to imagine other ways of utilizing the same track pieces and not just sticking with what the box says to do.  However, I just bought another track, mostly because it had a loop and since it was not rubber-band wound, was wondering if my nephew could use it.  Unfortunately, the packaging does little to explain what happens when the track is set up.  I have not put it on the wall, but I was snapping all the pieces together and this track eliminates the ability to deviate altogether.  It almost snaps and slides together as one single entity.  Therefore, lacking the standardization, I thought was implied in the other track that I did put together and also some of the tracks I had looked at pictures/videos of online at the Mattel shop.  This only disappoints me more than I initially had been.  All this attention I have dedicated to potential track deviations has led me to realize there are definite improvements that could be made that could allow children to apply their own imaginations.

Thoughts:  there are a lot of 1 into 2 track pieces that use diverters or trapdoors; however, I have not seen a 2 into 1 piece.  An inverted diverter or trapdoor would actually make more sense to me because the car will automatically interact with them in a 2 into 1 system as opposed to requiring a kid to push a lever or open the door to send the cars down a different path.  Tracks are also confined.  It is hard to explain what I mean by this, but I just feel like though the tracks connect, when you connect two sets you have two systems not one combined system.  I think that could be changed, but it would require some redesigned pieces.

I should probably get to the point of this post, it is just a big idea that goes along with all the Hotwheels I have been thinking about lately. Although this is a big stretch from the track design I have been critiquing:

It is an idea to create a playhouse and track system.  My thought was the playhouse would look like a car on the outside maybe even have functional wheels and be a mobile/transportable system.  The inside would be covered with wall tracks, playsets, and artwork.  I mentioned this idea to my brother and he did not say much about it.  I am assuming he did not give the idea much thought.  Not sure how he managed to do that, I cannot seem to stop thinking about this.