Toy Hacking

Learning and Tensions around Toy Hacking

During class we were able to take apart electronic toys in a toy hacking maker space.  I began by placing a screwdriver into the seam along the base of my toy car.  It took quite a bit of muscle and other wedging tools to pry the toy car apart.  Many other participants at my table experienced this difficulty and we were surprised to find that the plastic toys are very well constructed.  We figured this indestructible nature of toys is for safety reasons so that kids can’t get inside the toys and accidently swallow small parts.  It is interesting to think about how the fear of lawsuits might affect the construction of toys.

Once inside the toy, I found that what made it move was a really simple mechanism that contained a crank and gear.

 While my toy moved when pulled back and released, it was not electronic and so my quest became finding a way to make it move electronically.  I had to find another gear that would fit and find a way to attach it to a circuit motor (like we used in the scribbling machine) and a battery.    This was very challenging and through trial and error, I  was able to figure out a way to make it all work.  But, first I had to open the car up wider without snapping it in half, and I had to drill a hole in the plastic car.   A classmate suggested using the Dremel automatic drill to do this.  This was all new learning for me.  I had to learn how to work it and how to drill into the toy.  Unfortunately, I got over zealous and drilled too big of a hole and the toy snapped apart just as my time ran out. 

I learned a few new things.  First of all I am proud that I now know how to use a Dremel drill and feel confident that I could use it again. I was struck by how stressed out it made me to not have enough time.  This is a consideration for teachers and something that we have discussed in class. With the frenzied pace of standardized curriculum restraints it is important for teachers to remember that tinkering and design are not activities to be rushed. 

Rusk, Resnick, & Cooke (2009) assert that at the core of the Clubhouse learning approach, young people don’t simply interact with technologies, they design and create with technologies. I felt that this toy hacking activity was a great example of the Clubhouse learning approach and offered multiple entry points to design and creativity.

This is not to say that there aren’t tensions around toy hacking.  I was struck with an comfortableness while taking apart the toy.  This may be a common emotion when it comes to destroying a toy.  If we consider the history of toys back before the 20^th century we know that children had few toys and that they were considered precious.  Additionally, they didn’t have time to play, work dominated their day. So, I think these ideas about toys being coveted and precious somehow stay present in our culture, passing down from one generation to the next, making it hard to dismember a toy.  In movies like Toy Story, Sid is demonized for hacking  toys.  Our culture is full of messages not to destroy or harm toys.  Toy hacking runs counter to the overall themes presented to children about taking care of their things.

I also wonder about the feasibility of doing toy hacking in schools? Schools are so institutionalized in their approach to materials.  Teachers spend so much time teaching kids to “use materials properly”.  Additionally, some children don’t have nice toys at home and therefore asking them to take apart a toy may bring up difficult emotions. Papert (1980) suggests “many children who grow up in our cities are surrounded by the artifacts of science but have good reason to see them as belonging to “the others””.  Similarly, when considering under-resourced populations and schools-it seems unlikely that the opportunity to take apart electronics and toys would be embraced in places that are concerned with preserving their scant resources. Which in turn leaves the educator wondering how to make toy hacking a possibility for all children, not just those in elite schools or afterschool programs.