Forum - Week 4 - Circuit Bending: Toys

I have always wanted to mess around with toy circuitry, so this week's forum was great fun. The first toy was a Light Saber, which made sword sounds when a button was pressed. Initially Jake and I hooked up a potentiometer that run through the touchpad and resistor, which allowed us to play back the sound extremely slowly.


Then we convoluted the signal with the LED, giving it a nice bleeping effect.


Finally, we gave it a soul and set it free.



The weekly assignment was to bend some circuitry on a toy of our own.

The Rap Car

Jake and I pulled apart a little rapping car, which proudly shouts the words "Uhh, You're a Dead Man!". Unfortunately the resistors on the circuit were so small we couldn't get anything to permanently attach to it, which severely limited our outcomes.

Circuit diagram

Nonetheless, we still conjured some weird and wonderful sounds. This was the first time we tried circuit bending - by which I mean we actually bent the circuit, which can be seen in the 'gradual sound speed up' video below.

Toy car before & gradual sound speed up


Jake and I were unsure of how we were actually creating the sounds in the following clips, as we did not have anything connected that we hadn't already tried before.

Tone created with circuit & strange 'boing' sound


Our hatred of the limitations of the circuit and of lo-fi toys in general meant we had no qualms in smashing the toy to bits afterwards.

Jake's distaste for toys & my distaste for toys