I’ve mentioned before an old metric my buddy Randall came up with as a measure of household technical sophistication was how many lasers do you have lying around? Think about DVD players, CD players, drives in your computer, presentation pointers and so on. It can really add up.
I’m always looking for the next iteration of that concept (though it still holds up pretty well), and this may be one: how many robots are in your kids’ room? How many of the plush toys that sing songs or tell stories are built on cool, technology-laden frameworks?
Matt Kirkland, with the curiosity and deconstructionist spirit that lies in many of us GeekDads, asked himself this too:
I’ve always been curious about stuffed animals that sing, dance, light up, or talk back. There must be a fascinating robot underneath the fur and fluff, right? Surely the robot hiding in the bear’s clothing, vestimentis ursum, is impressive. So: armed with my childish curiosity and the spurious excuse of ‘product design research,’ I set out to discover what, exactly, these creatures are hiding.
And so he went about the task, and provided us with the results.
Have any of you, GeekDads, ever gone about taking apart one of your kid’s toys to see what made it tick? If so, please share in the comments!
[this post originally ran in April, 2008]
