The New York Times has an interesting piece on a new miniature golf course at the New York Hall Hall of Science that helps teach kids astrophysics:

At the geosynchronous-orbit hole, where the ball swirls around a large bowl before dropping into an opening, Dr. Shara showed the boys how the ball was following parabolic arcs that kept abruptly changing, or precessing.

“This happens in real space time, too,” Dr. Shara said, explaining how objects would follow similar paths down into a black hole, and how Mercury’s parabolic orbit precesses. “The Sun’s gravity is warping the space around it, so Mercury does the same crazy kind of thing that the golf ball just did.” [Link]

This isn't the first time a science museum has used mini golf to teach science. Ithaca's Sciencenter has a similar astrophysics "course" and The Science Museum of Minnesota has an intriguing "Earthscapes" miniature golf course that "provides a fun - and challenging - way to learn how water moves from mountains to oceans and shapes the landscape along the way. With water hazards like you've never seen before, this 30,000 square-foot course demonstrates that rivers and streams are alive and ever-changing!"

The five cups below are among our least favorite sippy and straw cups for kids ages two-point-fiveish to fiveish; elsewhere on Z Recommends you can see how we ranked 24 sippy cups for babies and early toddlers, or what we named the World's Worst Sippy Cup and the World's Worst Straw Cup. Yes, we are obsessed with this stuff! It's why you love us...

A reminder of the rules of engagement for this division:

• Look to the scores to see why we ranked a cup the way we did; sometimes there were things we really liked about a product, but another category killed its chances at a good ranking.


• We did not leak-test straw cups except when their lids were closed, and all the cups in this showdown passed that test without incident.


• We'd love to hear your impressions of a product, whether you agree or disagree with our assessment - we (and other readers) love to hear how these products fared in your own home, as no design is perfect for everyone, and each is sure to have its advocates.


• Last but not least, don't forget that you'll have the chance at the end of the week to vote up a cup you see here or in our upcoming Middle Tier that you believe deserves Top Pick status!

And now, on to the rankings! Our Middle Tier and Top Picks for this division will follow tomorrow and Thursday.

Nuby No-Spill Flip It Straw Cup

Design: A 12-oz hourglass cup with a flip lid and three-part straw (top portion, firm straw, and straw extension).
Price: $3.50 | Shop for Nuby's No-Spill Flip It Straw Cup on Amazon | View all Nuby listings in the ZRecs Guide
Observations: Nuby's flip-top lid features a straw design that takes a bit more fiddling to thread through the opening than competing designs by Munchkin and cannot be completely disassembled, leaving some nooks and crannies that cannot be completely exposed for cleaning. The soft silicone straw tip will lose its shape over time and could lead to increased leaks, although the flip-it top offers a firm seal when closed. Our favorite thing about this cup is that the straw assembly's two sections make the components interoperable with a smaller Nuby straw cup, which made our Middle Tier of ratings (not yet published).
Ratings: Ease of Use and Care: 7. Durability: 8. Eye Appeal: 6. Value: 8. Total points: 29/40.

Zak! Designs Licensed Character Aluminum Bottle

Design: An aluminum bottle with a pop-up sport-style top and built-in cap with a flexible plastic loop to hold it on. Bright paints and popular licensed characters.
Price: $13. | View all Zak! listings in the ZRecs Guide
Observations: The cap fits snugly but can take a bit of fussing to press into place, and the neck is narrow, which means ice is out of the question and cleaning can be a chore. Lid and bottle are interchangeable with Born Free's stainless steel bottle, but not with Sigg bottles.
Ratings: Ease of Use and Care: 6. Durability: 7. Eye Appeal: 8. Value: 6. Total points: 27/40.

Munchkin Mighty Grip Sports Bottle

Design: A plastic bottle with a "sport" style lid.
Price: $4 | Shop for Munchkin's Mighty Grip Sports Bottle on Amazon | View all Munchkin listings in the ZRecs Guide
Observations: What can you say about this bottle? The narrowed gripping area of the bottle makes this a bit of a pain to clean, and the silicone straw-like spout won't stand for much wear and tear. Plus, it's pretty ugly. Decent for the youngest segment of our demographic here, as it encourages straw-like mouth formations that are developmentally friendly, but otherwise, meh.
Ratings: Ease of Use and Care: 7. Durability: 5. Eye Appeal: 5. Value: 5. Total points: 22/40.

Nuby Sports Sipper Cup

Design: A plastic bottle with a "sport" style lid.
Price: $3 | Shop for Nuby's Sports Sipper Cup on Amazon | View all Nuby listings in the ZRecs Guide
Observations: Nuby's Sports Sipper doesn't have a lot to recommend it for young users other than its price tag. A "grippy" surface attached to the bottle's side doesn't add much for young users, and the super-soft spout deteriorates with use. See Munchkin's Mighty Grip listing above for more - these cups are functionally identical.
Ratings: Ease of Use and Care: 7. Durability: 5. Eye Appeal: 4. Value: 6. Total points: 22/40.

Born Free Stainless Steel Water Bottle

Design: A sturdy stainless-steel bottle in 9 or 12 ounces that has a sport style top opened by a front button, and a built-in cap with a flexible plastic loop to hold it on.
Price: $11/$14 | Shop for Born Free's stainless steel water bottle on Amazon | View all Born Free listings in the ZRecs Guide
Observations: Born Free's bottle is heavy-duty and has a clean look, but the logo sticker begins peeling after a few uses. The lid has a complex tangle of parts "under the hood" that allow the button to function, but the result is that they are exposed to the elements when the bottle is in use; for any liquid other than water, this means limited access to parts that can require cleaning. The cap fits snugly but sometimes with a bit of difficulty. The narrow neck means no ice for the kiddos, and it can be a pain to clean. Bottle and lid are interchangeable with the Zak! aluminum bottle, above, but not with Sigg bottles; the failure to make parts interoperable with Born Free's own bottles is a missed opportunity.
Ratings: Ease of Use and Care: 3. Durability: 7. Eye Appeal: 6. Value: 5. Total points: 21/40.

You might be tempted to toss a few Rubbermaid Litterless Juice Boxes in your cart at the grocery store, and we wouldn't blame you - they sort of creep up on you in the food storage aisle, while their closest price competitors, colorful $3 products by Nuby and Munchkin, are off somewhere with the baby stuff. The Litterless Juice Box also has a durable, hard plastic straw built into the lid, so in theory they should last longer than straw cups with silicone straws you have to occasionally separate from their cup lids. And if you're looking for a slim drink container to fit into a child's lunch box, this may be just the thing.

But for young children, the Litterless Juice Box has three problems, two minor, one major. First, it has a vent that is really just for show - it utterly fails to allow air into the container when drinking, which means suction builds up quickly and allows only for small drinks. Second, its straw is so flimsy, you'll think someone just cut a disposable straw a little short and dropped it in the package, yet the diameter does not match most standard straws, so you cannot easily replace it. But the worst infraction of this little cube is that, just like the juice boxes that are its namesake, the Litterless Juice Box can't hold it's juice: A gentle squeeze pushes liquid up through the straw, and a more forceful one ejects it like the world's best squirt gun. How long will it take your four-year-old to figure that out?

Ratings: Ease of Use and Care: 5. Durability: 4. Eye Appeal: 3. Value: 4. Total points: 16/40.

It took us a couple weeks longer than planned, but we're ready to launch the BPA-Free Sippy and Straw Cup Showdown, Toddler to Pre-K Division tomorrow. Thanks to everyone for being patient while we put 17 kids' cups through their paces as life continued throwing life events our way.

We covered infant and toddler sippy cups in our Baby and Toddler Division, and we're moving on now to cups for kids you aren't sure you can call "toddlers" anymore - everything from two-year-olds wiser than their years up through five-year-olds who could still use a little help. Some of these cups are great for older kids, too, but we're focusing here on how well they perform for children in the "toddler to pre-K" age range. This is the demographic where straw cups, sports tops, larger volumes, and cooler designs start playing a bigger role. We nixed the spill testing, as it's almost impossible to make a straw cup that doesn't leak when fully opened, unless you make it difficult to drink from.

As in our Baby and Toddler Division, every cup we are including in this showdown meets the guidelines of the ZRecs Guide to Safer Children's Products, meaning we've researched its chemical status with well-placed company officials at every brand and have given it a clean bill of health based on their published and verbal statements. Additionally, we've tested them all - we don't do armchair "reviewing" here at Z Recommends... everything we discuss has been thoroughly tested and evaluated here at the HQ.

Our first stop in this division of the showdown will, once again, be the crowning of a "Worst" - last time it was the World's Worst Sippy Cup; this time it's the Worst Straw Cup. We'll reveal it tomorrow morning and then step into the bottom of our three tiers of rankings tomorrow evening, with Middle Tier rankings revealed Tuesday and Top Picks announced on Wednesday or Thursday.

For those that may not have noticed, the Safe Sippy rocked the house in our Reader Rescue Poll from the Baby and Toddler Division, earning 41% of the nearly 200 votes cast. We've added the listing to the Top Picks post, and will be offering readers the same chance to raise an unjustly slighted cup in our Toddler to Pre-K Division to Top Pick status.

As always, we love to hear your own thoughts on the cups we rank and how they have worked - or haven't - for your family!

Here's a roundup of the rankings from the ZRecs 2009 Sippy Cup Showdown's Baby and Toddler Division.

Top Picks

• Innate Me-Me


• Playtex Insulator


• Tilty


• Philips AVENT Insulated Cup


• Thinkbaby Trainer Cup


• Munchkin Cupsicle


• Playtex Sipster Spill-Proof Cup


• Reader Pick: Kid Basix Safe Sippy

Middle Tier

• Boon Fluid


• Klean Kanteen Sippy


• Playtex First Sipster Spill-Proof Cup


• Philips AVENT Magic Cup Sportster


• Munchkin Mighty Grip Spill-Proof Cup


• Munchkin Trainer Cup


• Nuby No-Spill Gripper Cup


• Nuby No-Spill Cup with Soft Spout and Handles


• Born Free Training Cup/Drinking Cup


• Thermos Foogo Sippy

Bottom Tier

• Kid Basix Safe Sippy


• Philips AVENT Magic Cup


• Munchkin 9-oz Sippy Cup


• Learning Curve/First Years Sesame Street Spill-proof Cup


• First Years Take 'n Toss


• World's Worst Sippy Cup Award: Gerber Graduates Tossables

We thought we were smart when we got a body double for Z's favorite stuffed animal, Spot, when she was a toddler. Then, somehow, we managed to lose them both, and after a while Spot's absence began to hollow a little hole in Z's heart.

A big thank-you to Jamie, who responded to our tweet on Spot's long absence and offered to send a replacement. Thanks to her, Spot returned recently from a very long and exciting trip!