As part of a class Hawra was required to build a plush toy with intelligence, and decided to integrate a version of the "Simon" game into a plush octopus toy. For the unfamiliar, "Simon" was an electronic handheld game popular in the 1980s that would blink an ever-increasing pattern of lights, which the user then had to replicate by pressing matching buttons. In this project the lights and buttons are fitted inside the end of four of the octopus' tentacles, with a great result:
Apart from finding a suitable toy, building your own "Simon the Octopus" is relatively simple. Due to the limitations of the designer's lilypad board they could only have four legs active, and no USB interface for easy reprogramming. You could have up to eight legs going at once using one of our Freetronics LeoStick boards - a full Arduino-compatible with inbuild USB, pizeo and RGB LED in a tiny form factor:
Furthermore, for more information on the project visit here.
