2006.04
- a collectable musical "Gocha" style toy line
- cooperated with Chris Kairalla
- character designer + modeler + pic programmer
- Pic Basic Pro/Java

Watch demo:
high (mov, 8mb)
low (mov, 3mb)


See character's introduction cards (coming with the toy in the package)
click to enlarge:


Final presentation here (pdf, 1.7mb)

The MisFits is a set of musical toys. They are in figures of typical high school students who are: the geek, the artistic rebel, the troublemaker, the day-dreamer and the fat kid.


The MisFits are kids who feel like they don't fit in. On their own, they don't say very much and feel incomplete. They learn how to express themselves by fitting in with each other. You can interact with they by (1) shaking their heads to make percussion sounds:

(2) connecting heads to bodies and twisting to play new notes:

and (3) switching bodies and heads to combine different personalities of sounds:

Below shows the technical specification. All electronics components are supposed to be filled into a 2.5-inch-high cube to make the whole figure portable toy. The size of the body varies in different character (for example, Gordan is twice as big as Gregory).

prototype

We made the audio part by Java in computer instead of midi chip in the toy due to technical and time issue. The mircrocontroller 18f252 talked to the computer through serial port (R232) and sent all data such as: the resister ID, how much the player twisted the head, and if the head was shaked or not. Below shows the prototype of Tongue with a bunch of wires coming out of his head, kind of scary though. Then Java generated the according sound.