Toy Hacking Week 3

This was my very first experience with toy hacking and I loved every minute. Although I was stumped at many points, it was the problem solving with Ellen and students that I enjoyed the most. I brought in a few toys and so did Ellen. Over the weekend, I opened up a talking teddy bear (it had never worked so I didn’t feel bad destroying it) and immediately got overwhelmed with the wires and circuit board. I watched a few more videos and waited until a talked with Ellen on Monday. I knew that she had hacked a few toys in her day.

On Monday, I brought Lightening McQueen car that made a simple, “vrooom” sound the teddy bear was complicated and still not working.  It seemed like a better toy to start with since it only had one speaker and one input button. The inside was still overwhelming but I enjoyed trying to identify the wires. It was easy to see that the red/black wires connected to the battery pack but the other colored wires were confusing. Ellen’s toy was much more sophisticated with multiple speakers, lights and inputs. One of the videos mentioned not to cut the wires so I was hesitant to do so. We examined some more and didn’t know how to proceed. That’s when we both joked that Elliott, an engineering-brain tinkering master of the 5th grade, would know what to do. So we called in the big guns and asked him to take a look. He immediately asked for some wire cutters and wire strippers. Although still hesitant to cut, we cut two purple wires from the car. We choose to cut those wires because when we put our finger on the circuit board near them it changed sounds. We tried putting the purple wires other places on the board but it didn't work. However, when we touched the two purple wires together we got a clear  “vrooom” sound. I guess we disabled the input button by cutting the wires and it was a lot of fun to touch the wires together to get a new “vrooom” sound. Ellen did the same to her toy and the same thing happened. We tried touching her wires to the car wires but nothing happened. We finally felt some hacking success but still didn’t know how to connect my car to Ellen’s driving toy so we decided to eat lunch.

Afterschool, Ellen and I reconvened and were discussing how to get the sound of my car to her driving toy when a group of 6th graders walked into the room. Ellen suggested that we needed to eliminate a speaker from one toy. They were like hungry dogs looking at slops begging to tinker and play. It was then when I realized that I need to do this with my 6th grade Tech Class. It was clear these kids are not afraid to problem solve in this situation. Their imaginations were running wild, offering Ellen and I suggestions. I made a mental note to ask the 6th graders to start bringing in toys for next week!  I also realized at this moment that I was so happy I decided to do this project at school. I think it was so valuable that the students got to see Ellen and I learning like students, stumped at every turn and they were the ones coaching us with suggestions. I love when the roles reverse.

The 6th grade group encouraged us to cut some more wires. Like Elliott, they were also “cutting hungry” unafraid to breaking something. Again I was surprised how much more willing they were to tinker than I was. We cut the blue wires on my car and the yellow wires that connected to the speaker on Ellen’s driving toy. Then connected these speaker wires together and then transferred the sound from the car to the driving toy. It felt good to get our feet wet with circuit bending!

Doing this with students next week has me filled with mixed emotions and some questions. I loved the energy we noticed from Elliott and 6th grade group and I am excited to try this out. I am a bit worried that I don’ have the background knowledge of wiring to help students. When researching, it appears that every toy is made differently and there are no true hard and fast rules about toy hacking only about the design process.  I plan to use the planning sheets and steps you outlined for us with this assignment. I thought the video identifying the input wires (although it could be any color) and red and black wires will also be a great resource.  It seems like toy hacking is very open-ended which can make any teacher squirm but will result in true making and discovery. Are there any more wiring information sheets/videos that might be good for 6th grade?