BYOT (T=Toys)

[lordnacho]

Anyone ever make any toys with buttons, switches, etc?  Was on vacation last week in Florida, on a rainy day we took the kids to a children's museum in Naples.  They hovered in a fake bus where the driving controls were just one steering wheel and a ton of light up buttons.  The screen didn't even interact with the buttons, it had it's on touch screen controls.

Was thinking about putting something together, but haven't pondered any ideas yet.  Maybe just a NASA like control panel.  Wondering if kids would easily get bored of this though.

[ChadTower]

Isn't everything we build a toy?   

[lordnacho]

Are you talking about my action figures?  THEY AREN'T TOYS!!!!!

[Vigo]

Nope they're not....................those are dolls.   

[ark_ader]

I think you can make one of these:



Putting the base on a turntable or if you want to get more interesting  or a  multi axis gimble - connected up to a drill motor. 

The pilot would have an interactive game that would be touch screen controlled.

You can add sound effects and change the program when the pilots get tired of the game.

Or maybe a Sinistar with a rumble feature, the list is endless.  Especially if there is a harness to get strapped into to add to the fun.

I would make a flight simulator that looks like this:



Again can be modular and not that difficult to make, throw in flight simulator X with a rear screen projector and you will have to pry them out of the cockpit for bedtime/dinner/school. 

[CoryBee]

Oh my god ader. I want one, but for an adult.....for me.

I imagine sinistar or asteroids or something with the joystick switches also connected to the motor the turns the whole thing. Or maybe I have drank too much too early in the day........

[ark_ader]

Oh my god ader. I want one, but for an adult.....for me.

I imagine sinistar or asteroids or something with the joystick switches also connected to the motor the turns the whole thing. Or maybe I have drank too much too early in the day........

No it is perfectly reasonable.  We get to the age where our wallets act in a symbiotic relationship to our wildest imaginations.

Checkthis link out to see where I am going with this.  Oh and imagine SW Trilogy on this thing?

Has anyone tried this stuff out for a home cinema or flight Simulator?

 

[lordnacho]

Pretty cool stuff.  My kids are a bit too young so I was thinking simpler, but yeah I want this stuff for myself.

No it is perfectly reasonable.  We get to the age where our wallets act in a symbiotic relationship to our wildest imaginations.

This and Le Chuck's R2 led me to sign up at astromech.  Always wanted one, contemplating it but not sure what route($) I want to go with it yet.

[Le Chuck]

Pretty cool stuff.  My kids are a bit too young so I was thinking simpler, but yeah I want this stuff for myself.

No it is perfectly reasonable.  We get to the age where our wallets act in a symbiotic relationship to our wildest imaginations.

This and Le Chuck's R2 led me to sign up at astromech.  Always wanted one, contemplating it but not sure what route($) I want to go with it yet.

Aluminum kit with JoyMonkey's controllers and retractable center leg!  If you're gonna go...go all out.  I'd love to do a full automaton

[lordnacho]

Drool

Weird, ROTJ is on cable now.

[Vigo]

Special Edition I bet, haha.

[lordnacho]

I'll sing my own ending

[kahlid74]

We have a place in Milwaukee called "Betty Brinn Children's museum" and every time we go I'm always amazed at how they just slap a bunch of buttons on pieces of wood, paint them and then partially connect them.  It's disappointing when I push the horn button on the bus and it doesn't register.  My son could care less as he rolls from one thing to another but it gets annoying for me.

My first question would be what age/s are your children.  The next is how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go.  There are some SUPER cool programming stuff you can do with buttons and Arduino/RaspberryPi/BeagleBone's.  It's pretty straight forward too, not very time consuming once you get the first few done.

As far as getting bored, they would, they always do.  Our children have an even shorter attention span than we do.  Which is why if you do this, involve them from the start and let them help you program it.  Then they'll learn how to build it themselves and will get MUCH more use out of it than you just connecting some buttons and giving it to them.

[lordnacho]

Ages 2, 4 and a new one in a few months.  I think you're right about the attention span, we've got some cool toys they just never want to play with anymore.  This would end up in the same situation.

At least that's what I'll tell myself.  Have some weird stuff happening at work, there were layoffs but now postponed.  In the end, I'll probably get hit, so I have to hit the books this summer before the new kid arrives.  I'm falling behind technology-wise working for a corporation, so have to get a couple new programming languages under my belt.

I do have a raspberry pi that ended up in my closet cause it was just too slow for me for anything I wanted.  Maybe someday.