Ever wondered what’s inside your favourite toys?
On Thursday November 23, the makerspace hosted a fun maker night and special toy hacking edition of Repair Café. YuKonstruct members showed off their toy projects, we dissected a Furby (1990’s mechanical, furry, noisy, talking, creature thingy) and even found some time to fix some small appliances.
Michel brought along the sound generating machine he built for his daughter. Its buttons, dials and sensors are perfect for entertaining a toddler, but perhaps not all parents would be as willing as Michel to give their child an electronic noise machine…
Chris and Allison showed off their restored vintage toy record player with custom 3D printed records (you can read the instructions they followed on instructables). They also brought in their animatronic Krang (the villain from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) that they made from another Furby.
The highlight of the night though by far was the Furby dissection. We removed appendages, fur and various components and got a chance to explore the different mechanisms to try and find out exactly how it works (we still have much to learn).