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Old Toy Modding?
Sqwubbsy writes "Stumbling through Google, looking for info on the Big Trak by Milton Bradley, I came across an article about one that was retrofitted with an OOPic controller. I was wondering if anyone else had a good story about a retrofitted toy that they beefed up?"
You can get a lot of uC's cheap, but you have to (a) make hardware for them and (b) program in assembler or shell out some big bucks for development environment. Then you spend so much time doing housekeeping code you've lost any interest in the project.
If you want to get into in microcontrollers, the oopic is a great place to start. The oopic (based on the microchip PICMicro chips) has an on-board object oriented programming language based around hardware objects (dc motors, servos, etc). The software is free. You code a few lines up and *bingo* working robotics.
Then after you've used them for a while, you can move up to bigger and more powerful things. Atmel cpus, PICMicros in assembler and C, TINI boards.
Check out for a basic explanation and introduction to circuit bending.
Banaaaana!
This is a running problem with most batteries when operating a motor. Unless the battery is entirely solid state and doesn't decay over time, the voltage it supplies drops as it gets used up. Problem continues to exist today with Lego Mindstorm robots as well. To correct for this, one would want to put a sensor which senses the rotating shaft on the motor -- keep rotating motor until it's gone through the proper amount of degrees instead of just supplying driving voltage for about the right amount of time.
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
PORK!
-Adam
Here you can find some links. They are not all toy moding, some are toy destruction but you have between others:
How See 'n Says Work;
How to make a talking fish say what you want;
And of course Scientific analysis of the destruction of a toy Chibi Moon figure.
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
So I thought you had just gipped this off of an episode of the Simpsons wherein Malibou Stacy says a phrase just like that. I was a tad shocked to find out it's true, and the Simpsons were merely mocking real life. Apparently it's called Teen Talk Barbie, released in 1992. A person with more details (but no references) posted on this board. According to that second link, the quote is "Math class is tough!" I imagine most people make the quote you did from having seen the Simpsons episode previously.
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
I can't believe this one remains so popular. I actually went through two of these due to the poor quality of the keypads. Once they were dead and gone, I went through about five or more years of withdrawls.
In retrospect, I suppose that toy was the start of my interest in robotics and AI, though I have yet to officially toy with anything beyond an A.L.I.C.E or eggy bot.
My problem is I also lack the attention span to be able to sit down and teach myself ICs, programming, you know, all that brainy nerdy stuff.
From what I remember of my BigTrak(s), I remember the plastic tires being pretty crappy, though the 'suspension' it had was pretty badass when it came to driving on pavement and the like. A set of rubber tires would have made it much more rugged and versatile.
Oh to be 7 again...
I solved this on one of my robots with computer mice. We didn't have optical mice because we were broke, but one mouse on front, one on back, worked well on some surfaces. It's a more robust feedback than just a shaft encoder.
One of my teachers at GMU built a helicopter with what was effectively a really powerful optical mouse that detected altitude, attitude, and movement.
well, a quick google found this:c lock.ht m
http://users.actcom.co.il/meccano/riefler_
the main site:
http://users.actcom.co.il/meccano/
They have examples of a bunch of meccano clocks and other devices.
Your actions on earth echo in eternity.
That would still give you problems on different surfaces, which affect the degrees turned per unit time or whatever very substantially, due to slip between the wheel and the carpet. The only way of doing it properly, I think, is to install a compass or equivalent.
The only sensors I have that are useful for this are the infra red radar trick, and a parking radar kit which has more range but eats batteries and is rather ugly.
In my case, at every search (when looking for paths by spinning round), if it finds 1 feature in roughly 360 degrees I use that to set the effective turn time step. I could add some sort of pattern matching algorithm for more complex cases, but life is too short.
Bullshit?
I've been a long time R/C car racer. Started when I was 8. Some cars DO have a mechanical speed control hooked up to a servo (variable resistor, or many different resistors, hooked to conducting plates). In fact, my very first car had such a speed control (metal plates) (an Associated RC 10). I wouldn't at all doubt that many cheap Wal-Mart cars have similar--it is indeed very cheap to do.
See THIS What's that on the left side of the car? Thought so--and that's a new KIT.
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Actually, the Big Trak was a little smarter than this (I took mine apart also). On the inside of each wheel was a disc with evenly spaced holes. On one side of the disk was a fixed IR emitter. On the other side, a detector. When the Big Trak turned, out could "count" the times the hole lined up between the emitter and receiver and therefore know the wheel had gone a fixed distance. Even if there was some slippage, mine was largely accurate. I remember many times sending it across the room and back. The big problem was that there were a couple of rubber bands that sat around the middle wheels on each side to aid in traction. If they were missing/removed, it did tend to slide a bit more.
Believe it or not it's illegal to play non-Teddy-Ruxpin tapes in a Teddy Ruxpin bear, because by doing so you're creating a derivative "audiovisual work comprising animated plush toy bear with unique voice." And that was before the DMCA. Those lovable, zany copyright lawyers, what ever will they think of next?
IANAL, however I see this claim made about the Teddy Ruxpin cases (Worlds of Wonder v. Veritel Learning Systems & Worlds of Wonder v. Vector Int'l) on numerous web sites.
The key phrase here is "toy bear with unique voice". The unauthorized derivative works were being marketed as new Teddy Ruxpin stories, and used a similar-sounding voice actor and custom recorded data channel to capitalize on the original (copyrighted) Teddy Ruxpin "Look and Feel", the "ruxpin experience" which the children expected.
If you were to attempt to market a Ruxpin-compatible tape which caused Teddy's eyes to roll back in his head and intone a backwards-masked satanic mass recorded by Iron Maiden (One of the few groups to intentionally backmask on a metal album), you might be able to prevail against Worlds of Wonder.
OTOH, the market for black mass teddy ruxpin tapes is (hopefully) rather small.
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