Take it apart!
Having children provides ample opportunity to fix broken toys. When I was a child I was gracious enough to provide my parents with many such opportunities! They now buy their granddaughter toys with lights and loud sounds. A cynical view would be that this is payback! Though to be fair my daughter does love them, so this trumps everything.
When you take these toys apart, it’s actually surprisingly pleasing how simple and well designed the internals can be. The electronics and wiring are as minimal as necessary, the physical layout is efficient, seals are appropriate for the environment, and basic mechanical principles are evident throughout. Extreme cost pressure paired with the need for mass production are constraints that allow little else.
So open it up! And for more along these lines, check out my stubborn problems series; the broken toy whale is a fun starting point.
What do you think? Did I miss anything? Contact me!
This work by
Derek
Croote
is licensed under
CC BY-NC 4.0
