Item 2 - Dancing Hamster

Dancing Hamster

(Figure 1)

The purpose of the toy is to provide entertainment for children ages three and up. The toy must be easy to opperate and be able to withstand being thrown or dropped.

Components

Interaction with Humans - Human to Machine Interface

The toy's program is activated by a single click push bottton found on left hand of the hamster. This will activate the toy and it will sing and dance until it goes through its pre-programmed sequence.

(Figure 2)

Movement

Both arms swing back and forth in opposite directions while the head moves in an elliptical motion. The base of the hampster is designed like a rocker so that combinations of the arms and head moving causes the hampster to rock back and forth. The mechanisms found in arms and head are displayed in figure three and four respectively.

(Figure 3)

(Figure 4)

Power Supply

The toy is powered by three 1.5 Volt AA batteries which power the DC motor, the Amplifier for the speaker, and the push button switch.

Power Conversion

In order to supply enough torque to move the arms and head there is a gear reduction in the form of a pulley this decreases the speed but increases the torque that the DC motor supplies for the toy. The gear reduction can be found in figure 5 bellow.

(Figure 5)

After the gear reduction there is a change in direction of motion using a worm gear which also prevents that motor from being back driven by moving the arms or head.

Motion Conversion

The angular motion of the DC motor is converted to linear actuation found in the arm linkages and elliptical rotation for the head of the hampster.

Intelligence

Once the button is pressed the toy will complete a pre-programed sequence that is stored in a small amount of flash memory that is found on the control board that can be seen in fugure 6 bellow.