Everybody, this is James
from The Tech Nook.
Today, I want to talk about something
that's not totally music therapy related,
but used creatively, I think it can apply
to music therapy and perhaps places where
music therapists work.
And it is a fun little
technique called Toy Hacking.
So the idea behind that is
making toys accessible.
So, I mean, I feel like accessibility
is a huge component to our our work.
So what can we do to make things more
accessible to those to our population?
So, for example,
simple toys like this,
like this little guy, usually
requires a pretty strong squish
to press.
And the component here is this little
thing on the inside, but also has a
mechanical function to open the mouth.
That's pretty hard to do, too.
Toy Hacking is the idea of adding a
headphone jack
I have to the back of it or some of it, on
it, plug it in and using a regular
switch that we might have to press
to activate.
Unfortunately, this part is also
the mechanical part of opening the mouth.
You do need to squish that, but the
electric component to it,
we have now hacked to be
switched accessible.
So the idea here is accessibility.
So I used to be hacking in collaboration
with PT, OT, and Speech often, as well as
recreation. And with music i like it
because there are toys that we can
use to then hit other instruments.
Or honestly I just like
seeing the insides of things.
So it's kind of fun
and it can also open the door to more
complex and advanced wiring,
which then you can use to create your own
instruments using
something like the circuit playground,
which you can program
music notes, different sounds, and
a couple of different ways to play.
But it's a little more complicated
to do the actual programming.
And a good simple way to just get your
feet wet is to do some toy hacking because
the worst thing that you could
do is just break the toy.
And unfortunately, oftentimes there
are going to be some casualties.
Some in, some toys work
better than other toys.
Another another good reason behind this is
that pre-adapted toys like toys that you
can buy that are adapted by different
websites off the internet usually cost
a lot of money.
And the reason behind this, because it
does take a person actually hacking it,
hacking the pre-existing toys, you're
paying for their service to do it, which
is not unreasonable if you look at it
in terms of a service.
But if you're looking at in terms of like
"that's really expensive, we can't afford
that in our facility for everybody." If
you can learn how to do it, it makes it
much more affordable
and it's a lot of fun.
So a toy you could buy for
ten dollars, and hack it
yourself,
you've saved all of that money
and something you can do.
And these toys you buy off
the Internet that are adapted are just
the same as toys you can get off Amazon.
So my favorite example is
the toy adapted shark.
So the shark is this giant helium balloon
that is the size of a small child.
And the flippers in the back,
which are left and right
on the remote, make it swim.
And so I hacked it.
And it's really fun to fly
using two buttons instead of...
Two big switches instead of two
tiny small buttons on the remote.
[Jaws Theme]
Other ideas, other
things that I have here,
remote control cars work fantastically
because oftentimes the buttons are just..
The joysticks are just
up, down, left and right.
And the most simple way to hack a, um,
a remote control car is to do two buttons,
one to go forward and
one to go backwards and turn that we have
access to being able to
go just about anywhere.
There's some careful maneuvering.
Up next remote control mice...
Really fun to scare people, more
complicated ones such as the Digger.
This one goes forward and backwards as
well as turns here, as well
as move this up and down.
Summertime is fun.
So squirt guns are also..
Battery powered squirt
guns are really fun to do.
Get everybody wet. I
have also mounted that on the side of a
Halloween costume, which was a
tank that we put over somebody's
remote, or uh,
that we put over a power chair.
They were able to drive it
and scare people with water.
Cars are also fun to drive over paint.
My favorite is the remote
control whoopie cushion.
Who doesn't love a good fart break?
Honestly, the best one,
you hide it, they hide it.
Hide it by somebody's chair. S
omebody else set it off remotely.
Everybody laughs.
And then there are functional hacks that
I've done one involved, taking apart a
computer mouse and making that switch
adapted, at least for
the left mouse click.
So this is a trackball mouse
where a user can just
use the trackball and I put it in a
switch port that you can
plug in any switch to.
This one is a
just a little lever switch that
one can use now as a mouse.
You could plug in any other switch as well
to if you need a bigger switch or
something more like a sip and puff switch
that can be used now
as a left mouse click.
I did another version of these where it
had two a left and a right switch mount.
So with a mouse like this, a
client, resident, user
could access the mouse for
a variety of programs that use GarageBand
or Soundtrap,
clicking through YouTube, surfing the net,
video editing, or any mouse driven
digital audio workstation really.
And then with an On-Screen keyboard of the
computer, you can use it to just
click and type anything you need.
OK, the insides can get tough.
It's going to be a very basic overview.
You're going to need some tools.
Here's a list of tools you need.
Cool, did you get all those?
I will provide a link to an Amazon
list to make it easy for you.
So the idea is you're going to take apart
the remote, not so much to the toy.
The toy needs to stay intact.
You're going to take apart
the remote controller.
So, for example,
this is a great toy,
a great example of one that already has
forward and back and turn.
Very common with baby toys or one's first
real controller toy. Simplifies it.
Two buttons: forward, backand turn.
You want to take apart.
So screwdrivers.
Keep track of where all
of the screws went.
You look at the insides, the guts.
The guts can get kind of messy,
for example.
You're going to want to find
the actual buttons, usually the buttons
look pretty similar to
just these guys here.
And it's a simple switch once
for up, down, left and right,
you're going to identify
where the contact points are
on the back side.
Usually you can do it with
just two wires or an alligator clip.
What you'll do is take one alligator clip
to where you think the button is and
the other side to the other side.
And if...
When you poke the two alligator clips to
the two contact points, if it activates
the toy, then those are the two
points you want to focus on.
So you will remember those two points.
You'll take your
3.5mm Headphone jack.
You will make
you will solder two wires, keep them
different so you can see them. In the
end, it doesn't matter in this case.
One for positive one for negative
because the headphone jack is
what switches get plugged into.
Many of those Big Macs, any of your other
enabling devices,
use just plain old switches with the
headphone jack on the other side.
So simple.
Sort of.
Anyway, so you're going to make one of
these bad boys and then that's
what you solder into the jack
on the circuit board.
So you've kept track of the two
points that you need to solder
and you solder it in.
And here it is done these two guys here.
So I've soldered the headphone j
ack into that.
For forward and another one into back.
And this one I did forward and
then also the back and turn.
So I found the one for the turn.
I connected one side of the
back to one side of the turn.
And then the headphone jack,
one side goes to the other in the back and
the other one goes the other end of turn.
So the idea is that t
he closed circuit is actually
cutting through both the
back in the turn together.
That's how it adds together.
It's a little complicated to describe like
this, but hopefully you get my point.
Feel free to ask questions about this,
like e-mail us and we will do
our best to walk you through it.
YouTube is also a good resource.
I think if you just look up toy hacking
with some great resources, You want to be
careful when you do this because sometimes
the solder joints to other
components are really fragile.
And if you're saolder is too hot,
you might melt it.
So make sure you don't melt your
components because that's
another way to break your toy.
But sometimes you can
fix it like this one.
The joint came off of the battery pack so
you could just solder
back on to the battery.
All right.
Then comes putting it back together, which
sometimes goes well,
sometimes does not go well.
This one did not go well
because of the way that
it had to go back together by putting the
the soldered points back down.
And because of the wires are there.
It just there's just no room
for the wires, unfortunately.
This one is a little bit better.
I meant to put these
before I screwed it back in.
I had to put this back in, but I didn't.
This one, fits a little bit better.
There's a little more space on the inside
of the controller box and
actually cut holes on the side.
So there have been jacks
can be just plugged in
and then screwed into there.
There
are two different kinds
of headphone jacks
you can get.
One that looks like it has its own little
case and other ones
that have little screws
that you can
or things that you can screw back
into the toy with little washers.
Oh, I was just flying through this.
Yeah, just fly through this.
Some of the tools
that we do have that I really like using
alligator clips with
headphone jack into it.
It's great for testing
so you can plug the two parts into what
you think is supposed to be right.
And then you plug your switch,
youe switch in and then it's good
for testing and you flip the switch.
Beep beep beep, If it works your business.
If it doesn't you're not in business.
Another thing to look out for is if it's
just going off while it's plugged in.
That's never a good sign.
That means you found the
wrong contact points.
And what you're doing is just bypassing
the switch itself.
Opposite to the alligator clip with the
headphone jack port is the
one with the headphone jack.
These are great for when you
want to make your own switches.
So this is the same end as a
switch. These are
two alligator clips, you can use aluminum
foil and or copper tape or
your imagination
to flip one into a little foil and
the other end to aluminum foil.
You bring the two parts together,
you've made your switch.
So switch
can be made a lot of different ways.
I like to mass produce a bunch of these
headphone jacks at the same time.
Sometimes they have three bits to it
ground and positive and negative.
You want to make sure you do
the positive and the negative.
We don't need grounding.
Solder, wire at least two colors is good.
Needle nose pliers,
wire cutters, wire strippers.
I don't know where my wire
strippers are right now.
Something to hold things. S
oldering iron, solder cleaner.
I like this one because it's scrapes it
like a little brillo on the inside.
That's the gist of toy hacking.
Why do we like to toy hack?
Why do I like to toy hack?
You could do a lot with it.
It's fun.
It's crazy.
It gives the residents or
your clients accessibility.
And I really, really find that
important, especially for
accessibility to make music, especially
if there are physical limitations.
What ways can we as a therapist or
tinkerer or person interested in
technology, what can we do to make
the lives of those around us easier
and more accessible?
I've had a lot of just beautiful memories
and experiences with our residents, their
families and the staff, because we've
we've adapted the world around them
to help them reach it and play.
I work with children, so play
is a huge component to my work.
Sometimes it involves music,
most times it involves music.
Sometimes it involves just the play
.Being client centered, sometimes it takes
us away from the music and just making
fart sounds or chasing your nurse around
with a toy rat or painting with the wheels
of the car, or putting a squirt gun on top
of a car, driving the car
around, squirting people.
I've rigged up a system, remote detonator
where we have test models
here that are filled with Pepsi
clear.
Diet Pepsi, clear.
I know it's just water
and I'm different spigots here with
different holes at the top there.
This one, we've got four
little holes that we
have here attached with
paperclips to hold them.
And those are the two
string that attached to
tongue depressers attached to this
car that has seen better days.
Here we have the remote
starter here, detonator.
You should see the effect.
Pulling the pins on its own, right,
one, two, Roman numeral three.
And then it goespew!
So
there'll be a button, press it once, it goes on, goes over, then press it again to turn it off.
These are wonderful
experiences, especially in a
long term care facility,
so this is their home
and creating these experiences for them is
profoundly important to me
as a therapist, as a person.
And since I have the ability to create
these experiences, to create these devices
and bring these experiences
to the residents, I think it's really
important that I do that
and I am able to do that.
So thank you for tuning in
one to keep this short.
Hopefully you got a taste
for what toy hacking is.
There's a lot you can do.
Word of warning TV remotes, terrible.
Anything with these little soft kind of
buttons on the inside, it's
not going to be a hard switch.
It's going to be this little flat piece of
metal that then gets the button is
actually pressed by the rubber piece with
something conductive on the bottom side.
If it feels like a remote like this and
the buttons are soft, those never go well
because solder doesn't
stick to that stuff.
I tried toy hacking a
Nintendo Joy Con remote.
That was that was a bear.
Broke it.
Tough lesson, usually the more simple toys
are easier, the CVS clearance rack of
things that make noise or light up,
really great things to practice on
because they're cheap,
especially as you're beginning this.
Don't be afraid to make those mistakes,
much like I think we probably ask of our
clients to not be afraid. Again with this.
Don't be afraid to make mistakes.
You will guarantee it.
And that's the hardest lesson.
Usually it's like one small thing
that just breaks and it's toast.
But don't be afraid that and
don't be discouraged by it.
I think there's a lot of
rich experiences that can be done,
that can be had because of tiny
little remote control rats and farts
and with that, I think I said farts a
couple of times on this, so
I think I've met my quota.
Um, thank you.
Everybody happy Tech Nook=ing.
