Friday Night Robotics – Creepyyy Furby Hack!

Posted by Erin, the RobotGrrl on Friday, March 5th, 2010

Pat (a fellow member of COSI), had an awesome idea of a hack. We could hook up an Arduino to a Furby to make it into a fortune teller! The idea is based off of one of those creepy fortune-telling devices or something.

So he brought his Furby after Fall break, and we opened it up.

Getting the skin off was easier than we thought it would be! Presto:

We did not expect to see as many gears as we did, check it out:

What on earth could all of those gears be for?!!?!

Here’s the wires on Furby’s right side:

Furby’s left side:

After doing some digging through the internet and just poking the Furby, we figured out that…:

• The gears control the movements of the Furby- there’s no microcontroller to do this! (Back side)
• The wires on the right side are for the IR emitter and detector and LDR in the Furby’s forehead (Right side)
• There’s a switch in the tongue! (Right side)
• The motor wires are the ones with the resistors (Left side)
• We still have no idea what those other wires do (Left side)
• The motor doesn’t work with just +5V… Hmmm!!!

Figuring out the motor was a huge roadblock. If we couldn’t figure this out… then it just wouldn’t work! A few months later of Furby sitting on my desk idly staring at me it hit me! I could use MANOI’s battery to power the Furby!

The result:

(Video on Flickr)

We’re still not too sure what to think about the result. It’s hilarious though!! There is motor burning smell when we run it, but nothing is hot. Weird eh!

All we have to do now is hook up the sensors, maybe add a speaker… and this could definitely provide some super lolz!

Posted in: Projects, Robot.