We had a Group Project in college to combine a children’s toy with a keyboard and to make a game or some multimedia piece from it.It was my job to do the electronics and wiring for it and below is an account of my ordeal 
The progress blog can be found at httP://www.seabasshunterproject.wordpress.com
The Toy
The toy is a fishing rod game and it was my job to combine this with a small printed circuit from a keyboard. The following is the process I underwent and I was proud to achieve a working final product.
So, what was inside?
Fist thing was first, I had to have a look at what was inside and see what I could do with what was there. I opened the toy up to find:
The Modifying
Ideally, I would like to be able to fit everything needed into the space that I already had. I simply didn’t like the idea of having to have an external compartment somewhere on the toy to store the keyboard’s circuit and wiring. So I stripped out the LCD screen, it’s circuit and the wiring. This surprisingly didn’t leave as much room as I thought so I had to make even more.
This is the back plate of the screen part of the toy. I drilled and cut out the battery compartment (as seen in the first image) as it wasn’t going to be needed anymore. The new toy will be USB powered and leaving the battery compartment would have just been a waste of valuable space.
While I had the drill out, I drilled a hole at the bottom of the handle so that the USB wire would be able to run out it.
Seeing as the screen was no longer being used to display anything, I covered it in black tape just to clean it up and so it would look neater from the outside. The LCD screen itself is only about 1cm thick so I decided to leave it as it would look better than anything I could replicate.
The Initial Wiring
Now to the hard part. 
The keyboard’s circuit has two sets of pins. There are 12 pins on either side and a combination of at least one from either side *may* result in a character output from the keyboard. We checked this by touching pins from either sid with the same piece of wire. This completed the circuit.
Here’s a list that we made that shows what pins corrisond with a letter or number.
( Thanks to Lillian for the lovely hand modeling 
)
We chose only to do letters and numbers because we didn’t want to run into any problems later when it came to programming it later.
I glued the keyboard ciruit into the LCD compartment. This would make the circuit more secure and less prone to moving as I worked on it.
I had to double check these combinations again just to make sure. After I did this I began temporarily holding down the wires with some tape. This allowed me to get a better understanding of how many wires were needed and just how small and fidly it all is.
Now to hold down these wires. There was a little aluminium stip that came with the keyboard that I could use to hold down the wires with. I covered it in tape to insulated it as to not interfere with all the other wires.
However, when I went to screw the plate down, the center would tighten, but the edges rose and no longer held down the wires. It bent so I needed something tougher…….My solution? A Spoon of course!
As strage as it sounds, it worked! Of course, I cut the actual spoon part off and used the handle part. Again, I taped it so it wouldn’t interfere with the other wires but it did the job. I then tried to glue the wires in place as best as I could just to secure them.
Finishing The Wiring
So, I needed to connect the jystick that was already there to the keyboard somehow. I used 4 micro switches which would be pushed when the joystick moved up, down, left or right respectively.
I judged where the micro switches should go by placing them where the old switched used to be underneath the joystick. I covered the ciruit with tape to insulate and I could still see where the switches should go.
And the micro switches all wired up.
I also had to connect up the 2 switches that we were going to use from the bottom half of the toy. We were going to use the reel and theline switch. This wasn’t too hard to do theoretically but the wire kept breaking so it took a fair few tries just to get it the way I wanted.
Finishing Up
Just a last few things to do and that’s it!
I then ran the USB wire out the bottom put the other half on the main body of the fishing Rod.
Here’s a shot of some of the wiring I had to endure.
I closed over the LCD compartment careful not to damage the wiring and slid this onto the Main Body of the Fishing Rod.
I then tested it one final time just to make sure it worked and thankfully it did.
It’s safe to say that I spent over 20 hours on this project, although it may come across differently in this post. The wires never worked first time so it was a matter of constantly tweaking it until it worked. I’m just thankful that this ordeal is over me 
Thanks,
This is a DVD like menu from an end of year project. The Project will be made in Director and will have my Flash Animation, My Short Film, images and whatever else I can cram into the extras section.
On another note, the Toy Project that I’m currently working on is nearing completion. The Toy project is a challenge to combine a childs toy and a keyboard to creative and interesting effect. I’ve just about finished the wiring of the electronics which took A LOT longer than originally planned. A full report on what exactly I had to do will be up over at the group’s blog www.seabasshunterproject.wordpress.com for those interested.
Toodles for now
A good few actually!
I’ll start with Project Management. Basically, we have to take a toy, take it apart, use the buttons and what have you, and take the output of these buttons and turn them into inputs into the computer using Director. It’s fun and I’ll have a load of updates here when it actually gets going. As part of the assignment we also have to setup a dedicated blog to mark our progress so I’ll link to that when it’s up aswell.
Second is Multimedia Tools and Techniques which is basically Flash and Illustrator class. I have to create characters and make a 60 – 120 second animation on whatever theme I want. All has to be designed in Illustrator and then brought into Flash to actually animate it and make it all lovely and shiney. Again, updates when I actually start it all.
Thirdly is Digital Editing which is Final Cut class for everyone not in my course. Basically, I have to create a 30 second montage with the emphasis on the passing of time. I have to shoot the video myself and edit it as I see fit. I already have an idea for this one so it shouldn’t be too hard. *crosses fingers*
Fourthly and finally is Digital Editing again. This time it’s a 60 to 120 second video which is supposed to incorporate as many types of media as you can with original content gaining more marks than stuff nabbed of Youtube. It also has to be directly related to and have some elements of the Animation (stated above) in it. So, it has to be a prequel, equal or just be something involving it and it needs to include original recorded sound, video and animations. An example given in class was say, there is a shot of a T.V. onscreen. Our job would be to replace what is on the T.V. with video of our own. Again, I have an idea for this one aswell so it should be cool.
It’s all go but it’s all good at the same time. I’m actually really looking forward to the rest of the semester. There are a few more minor projects thrown into the mix so I’ll post them when they are all done and dusted.
Don’t you just hate it when you get home from college or school and know how to do something that you were shown in class but as soon as you get home you forget?
Yeah well, I was trying to do something for college that isn’t due until the 23rd of January and not leave it until the last minute like I normally would. It’s annoying because I actually want to do it as it’s quiet enjoyable. My brief is to make and Interactive Photo Gallery to be produced in Director using hand typed code and not the pre-built library scripts.
I could do it using the library but I’m sure I’ll lose marks so I’d rather not. I did however do the mock up in Photoshop and I tried to make it cool looking. It’s pretty much a waste of time because very few marks are actually being awarded for aesthetics but I don’t see the point in doing anything half arsed.
Here’s a screeny!
