[wgrover]

A parenting tip for those with geeky kids:

You can get some of these (like the smaller TOMY robots) for pretty cheap on eBay. They're usually broken, but the innards of these robots are so interesting, just taking them apart is a learning experience. TOMY was brilliant at making seemingly sophisticated toys that were actually run by a single DC motor; all the movements, sounds, sensing etc. were implemented using gears and cam shafts and other mechanisms. A great way to learn about simple machines, and a bonus if you (or your kid) can repair them and bring a 40-year-old robot back to life.

[BoxOfRain]

The original Furby was interesting on this front, I have one controlled by a Pi Zero using a motor controller and LED driver board (you need an LED for the cam position sensor, and this way I could backlight the eyes with RGBs too). Every expression the thing can make is driven by a single motor via a series of gears and cams, so it's pretty straightforward to get up and running. The main issues are that clearance is really tight and the gearbox is pretty noisy.

My eventual plan is to hook it up to an LLM and use it like the world's most uncanny Alexa, but there's an issue with the audio board I've not got around to fixing yet. Got a bit sidetracked by the server software which I'm using as an excuse to learn Cats Effect properly.

[accrual]

The Furby + LLM is an amazing and hilarious idea. Please post about it if you do this, would love to see!

[virtualcharles]

Same with some of the older Wowee stuff, Robosapien, Roboraptor, etc. In-box ones are expensive as collectors items, but you can grab ones that are missing the remote for cheap and then it’s a fun project to reverse engineer the IR signals with a Pi or Arduino or something like that.

[lawlessone]

If you have a FlipperZero it has an IR port that could probably work for this too.

If you don't have a FlipperZero, don't get one for this. there are cheaper options.

[dlcarrier]

I recently bought a complete-in-box Radio Shack Armatron for $15, and I was super excited to have such a complete piece of history. I checked eBay out of curiosity, and was surprised by how cheap it was. I could have bought one any time, for not too much more.

[wgrover]

And I remember going to Radio Shack at the mall as a kid and wanting that Armatron robot so badly! Being able to get these things now for pretty cheap and fixing them and playing with them with my kids has been such a treat.

[stavros]

I'm a bit surprised at your language; robots that use cams and gears to make complicated motions all run from a single DC motors aren't "seemingly" sophisticated, they are very sophisticated. It's much easier to make something complicated with code than with cams.

[iancmceachern]

Second this and to add the RadioShack Armatron is like this, a whole robot ark that runs off a single motor just by using clutches.