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Hacking (apart) cheap toys? — Parallax Forums

Hacking (apart) cheap toys?

John A. ZoidbergJohn A. Zoidberg Posts: 514
edited 2011-04-01 19:55 in General Discussion
A casual trip in my nearest Tesco gives me some ideas, especially in the toys departments.

Those cheap R/C mini 4WD cars can be salvaged for gears and other moving parts, I guess. Or, maybe I can gut the cars and put my own microcontroller board inside, wired it up and make a better R/C car, and reuse the chassis. I don't know, this is my random thought.

What about the "junior computers" there? Some of them has broken English inside, and some of them are shaky and flimsy. The screen could be reusable, but all it ended up was, I guess it's the single-chip blob thingy controlling everything in the computer. Again, I would gut it if it's cheap enough and reuse the keypads. Maybe we can all "upgrade" the "mini laptop for kids".

100-in-one brick games: Don't bother. Nothing to salvage or cannibalize here. Not even the mini-Sudoku sets are spared.

Toy pianos: This is one of my plans - I wanted to buy that cheapo $24 50-key mini-piano, and at my curiosity, open it up and see what is inside. I know, those cheap mini-piano never sound anything like Korg or Roland.

I could gut the piano out (the sound part), put a cheap dsPIC or Propeller inside to improve the sound.

Any more other funky or cool ideas on cheap toys? :D

Comments

  • ercoerco Posts: 20,260
    edited 2011-04-01 10:12
    These days you can get a nice MIDI-compatible full-size stereo music keyboard (Yamaha or Casio) for $100 with lots of synthesized sounds built-in and a sustain pedal jack. At that price, you'd be hard-pressed to upgrade a cheaper one. For a bit more, you can get the touch-sensitive keys, which adds lots of playability.

    RC-wise, a tank or vehicle with differential drive is a more user-friendly platform to hack than a car with traditional Ackerman steering. Per my other post, I just got a new Roboni off Ebay for $39 shipped. That has uC capability and remote control built in already, plus RFID.
  • markaericmarkaeric Posts: 282
    edited 2011-04-01 14:39
    Thrift stores are generally a pretty good source of cheapie motorized or musical toys. Unless you really need something specific, it's always nice to hack the junk that you spent less than $15 for.
  • HollyMinkowskiHollyMinkowski Posts: 1,398
    edited 2011-04-01 16:46
    I used to go to a store called Dollar Tree. Everything was actually 1.00 or less.
    They usually had several great items that could be re-purposed for uC fun.
    I got a child's toy cellphone once that I used for some practical jokes, it was
    well worth the dollar :-)
  • icepuckicepuck Posts: 466
    edited 2011-04-01 18:13
    I got a Chumby 1 a few weeks ago. It's kinda like an internet clock radio that runs linux. The neat thing about it is the os resides on a 1gb micro sd card. I got a 8gb micro sd card at costco today for $14, so I thought I could try to take an img of the original os an move it over to the 8gb sd. My first try failed so I'll figure out something else.
    www.chumby.com
    -dan
  • TtailspinTtailspin Posts: 1,326
    edited 2011-04-01 19:55
    The local Good Will store, has bins full of junk toys and electronics to play with...I found an old Roomba for $3.

    P.S. Thank You for that link, atrohoncurcit, It will be relevant when I need My finger print reader cleaned...
    I am also interested in the link in Your signature, could You please tell Me more?
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