I got a "Millenium Edition" electronic game of Scattergories from Goodwill.  What follows are the pictures from taking it apart, salvaging the speaker, and getting Claire's help to hook it up to an Arduino board that can modulate the voltage to play notes!  (I programmed in the Westminster Chimes.)

 …

I took apart a light up yoyo.  When functioning, the yoyo would flash it's led when spun sufficiently quickly.

Taking the yoyo apart revealed a simple mechanism.  There was a button cell battery, a spring and an LED.  When the yoyo vibrates, energy is transferred to the spring.  When the spring oscillates, it connects…

The electronic that I chose to break apart was a camera. The battery was broken so couldn't turn on the camera. This camera once belonged to Mariel so thanks for letting me rip it apart!…

I took apart a random broken gadget that I got from Andrea or maybe Betsy.  It had a switch, an LED, a mic, along with resistors and other components.  I was a bit lost about what to do, until Claire suggested using the mic as a sound sensor.  I took apart an existing sound sensor to figure out how that worked, then stuck my mic in there.  And it worked!  Kind of.

Before disassembling.…

This week we were told to bring in broken electronics and I chose an old bike computer to sacrifice. It was both old and obsolete. First I took apart the casing revealing an LCD screen and two silver contacts/buttons. The circuit board consisted of lots of little resistors,a capacitor, the…

John Brunhaver

Sam and I have broken a few helicopters.  The plastic piece that balances the rotor blades and prevents the top blade from intersecting the lower blade isn't very robust.

Here is the helicopter:

Removed the plastic casing:

Removed the…

In lab last week, I got to take apart an old, broken Epson inkjet printer. Here's a picture of it before the dismantling of it:

And some pictures of the progress of taking it apart...…

For this assignment, I dissected a toy helicopter. The helicopter couldn't fly anymore since the part keeping the rotor blades straight broke. Here is what it looked like before I took it apart:

Removing the cover and the base to reveal what's inside:…

Samantha Brunhaver

John Brunhaver

Outline:

===================================

Soldering the headers

Electrical connections

MIDI sample code 1

Finding the sample spec

MIDI sample code 2

Challenges



In addition to our guide written here, there is a lot of information about getting started with the instrument shield here ->…

Today, we soldered GoGoSense, a simple, plug-and-play sensor device.

Materials Used:

• GoGoSense PCB
• 68 ohm resistors
• 1.5 kilo ohm resistors
• 330 ohm resistor
• 100 nf capacitor
• 10 uF capacitor
• 3.6V Zener Diode
• Blue…

 
By Paul Williams, Tarun Pondicherry and Vipul S Redey

Video: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06iHBy5o-f8

We interviewed a precocious elementary school-going girl, Nika, to find out about her likes and dislikes. The crux of what we heard from her was that:


1. 

2. She loved animals - Specifically penguins, dolphins and horses

3. Her…

Robert’s Rockin’ Rocket

Betsy and Renee Try Out Rocket

Pictures of Design

Robert’s Drawing of Rocket…

by Mo Akade


Interview/Observation and Insights

I designed a learning toy for Ben Loh, a rambunctious 3-year-old boy. I was concerned initially about the first interview because I didn’t think Ben would be able to verbalize what he likes. I had prepared some interview questions, but went into the interview knowing that I might not get much. I decided that my time would be better spent observing Ben and asking him to tell me what…

We had an interesting and unique challenge of designing for a 2.5 year old. Interviewing a child of that age is particularly challenging as she does indeed have a logic and will of her own.  

From this interview, we were able to discern a few things: she loves animals, particularly dogs and bears. She also seems to like flowers and gardens.  She said specifically that she liked books. We watched her play with her dollhouse and she specifically requested a doghouse.  She also…

I interviewed a boy in 4th grade. It was my first time meeting him, and he was very shy at the beginning of the interview. He was even too shy to be in a video interview so I passed the video recording. I expected the child would feel somehow positive and curious about the project, however I encountered with an interesting response. When I described the project to him, he was not sure whether he wants to share his ideas, because he thought it does not make sense for him that a stranger can…

Anna Ly and José Lizárraga

For our dream toy, we decided to interview Ruby, a rambunctious 3 year old girl whose father is a Knight Fellow here at Stanford University. Considering that she is of a young age, we thought that it would make the most sense to have her show us her favorite toys rather than us sit with her at a table asking a bunch of questions. So when we went over their house, Ruby eagerly showed us to her room and explained all of her…

When we embarked on the task of designing a “dream toy” for a very special child, we leaned on one of our fellow LDT classmates who has a four year-old son named Joshua.  We were challenged by the fact that interviewing a preschooler is difficult – in large part because Joshua is very shy (especially around adults and strangers) when it comes to verbal expression. So, we ended up…

Samantha Brunhaver & John Brunhaver

Link to Dropbox folder: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7099240/DesigningForKids.zip

Link to Youtube video:  http://youtu.be/bd0NCeUTLTM

The Design

Based on her love of board games, puzzles, animals, and magic, we decided to develop a “race to the end” type of board game for Elizabeth, our…

For this assignment, Jeff and I teamed up to make a 3d object with lots of socket-and-ball joints. So, jellyfish it is! It was super helpful Jeff was a Solidworks genius. Here is our jellyfish in Solidworks:

After some rendering, it can be a transparent beauty in the imaginary…