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One day last September I participated in a one-day toyhacking workshop held by tinker.it and onedotzero. Yes, electronics – almost 24 years after a failed attempt to build a radio from scratch in grade 7. I was a bit reluctant when the workshop started, but the facilitators practically got our feet soaking wet within the first 2 seconds, and in response to it I amazingly got more and more courageous. I also found out that my soldering skill was not that bad, although the only time I have used it after that failed radio attempt in grade 7 was in the second year of architecture school when I made a model of a geodesic dome with a diameter of about 40 centimeters. That geodesic dome model was made of space frame structures which were made of about 2 centimeters struts, however, so I guess soldering hundreds of little struts into triangular space frames in the sole purpose of putting them together in an architecturally beautiful composition was quite good a training.
In the tinker.it workshop, I and two other people in my group made a wacky rabbit that ran away from us anytime we waved in front of it. We made that little wacky guy out of a rabbit soft toy shell, a movement sensor (stuck in place of the rabbit’s nose) and the wheels part of a remote-controlled car. I didn’t remember exactly why I signed in for that workshop – it was simply an obvious excitement I guess. Putting it in the bigger picture, however, I realised that the excitement stemmed from my interest in interactivity. I wanted to explore interactivity further, thus this toyhacking business in between Terra Incognita, et cetera and Nous ne notons pas les fleurs. Manual interactivity, electronic interactivity. Not to mention my dissatisfaction with Your fingerprints are mine, a few years back. Oh, and of course thanks to a little bit of Lure. The workshop provided substantial courage and a good spark of enthusiasm, but I thought I should try to train myself systematically as well. So two days ago I went to Savers and bought two very basic toys to start figuring out what this is all about. |
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| This one is just really simple. Each of the colourful buttons correspond to a sound. Press it and you’ll hear a sound. There’s also a power switch. |
| And then there’s the second toy – with a more complex function. Imagine being a three year old and playing this and having those synapses connect, clack, clack, clack, in your brain, without being aware of it. Ah! Now the duck’s singing along, whoa now the chick is – ooh and now the dog! No power switch, though. |
| So what should I do with them? I thought I would just set up a simple mission, firstly, to take the power switch from toy 1, and put it in toy 2. The first thing I did was to open toy 1. |
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| Ah, that safety thing – the battery compartment is fastened with a screw. The cover of the battery compartment of toy 2 actually says “caution: batteries to be installed by adults only.” |
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| By the way, what is it about trains and animals that inspired these toymakers? |
| Comfy rubber pads, tidy PCB, and of course, the power switch. The orange cable is connected to one end of the battery compartment. The red and white are each connected to each end of the PCB. |
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| Alas, I don’t have a soldering iron yet. And so, to be continued. |
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