In this project, I want to convey the idea of an ugly truth you need to accept through a visual idiom of “Letting the cat out of the bag”.
For this prototype, I wanted to mess around with sound distortion using a reprogrammed toy. Currently, I’m having a hard time accessing the speaker, as the toy case requires a very specific screwdriver to access. What I tried instead was tracing wires to find the positive and negative leads to the speaker, allowing me to mess around with low pass/high pass filters.
I also plan to try adding noise to the signal (Jake recommended I should try sending random servo commands), but my main goal is pitch-shifting the speaker output, which can only really be achieved through getting access to the timing resistor within the speaker casing.
As a minimal viable project, I can clip the signal sent to the speaker via filters, and I may play around with this some more. I’ve also traced different sensor inputs from the toy, so I can also play around with these in order to trigger preprogrammed movements, or I could directly cut wires to the servo in the toy and control them via an arduino. The major time-sink for this prototype was reverse engineering the toy, but now that I’ve traced the wires outside of the case I couldn’t open, I feel confident in modifying the toy further.
Included is a video demonstrating the sensor inputs (touch sensors) and demonstrating the correct speaker positive wire.
