Toy teardowns
Written by John Teel.
The parts were all organized on the ground in front of me, but the product I was attempting to build was surely impossible outside of Sci-Fi movies.
Or was it?
Before I became obsessed with computers around age 10, there were 3 “toys” I wanted for every holiday: remote control cars, walkie-talkies, and metal detectors.
Although I had lots of fun using them, it never lasted for more than a few days, because my curiosity would get the best of me.
All of these toys used electronics, which alone fascinated me, but these three specific gadgets were extra special.
I just had to understand them because they all had some type of invisible energy radiating from them.
I’ve always been fascinated with the world around me that can’t be easily seen or touched.
This is why I became a microelectronics engineer and not a mechanical engineer.
So what did I do?
I tore apart all of my electronic toys to try to see how they worked.
I became notorious for ripping apart every “tech” toy I got…
… but I also had a bad habit of never putting them back together.
At that time I was interested in how they worked, not how they were put together.
Sorry Mom.
So I ended up with a scrap pile of trashed electronic toys in my closet.
Apparently, my room was where electronic toys went to die!
I was determined to figure out how these toys worked, and how I could use their technologies for other applications.
One day my big idea struck me! I was going to build something that seemed impossible.
I knew my metal detector was different from my remote control cars and walkie-talkies which used radio waves.
The metal detector used something mystical to me at the time – electromagnetic waves.
Although later I learned that radio waves are actually a type of electromagnetic wave too.
I was determined to build something amazing with the parts from this electromagnetic wave generator.
I was in my front yard with the parts to my metal detector, along with scrap parts from my other dismantled toys, spread out on the ground in front of me.
So, what revolutionary new invention was I building?
Well, it was inspired by a mix of Sci-Fi movies and Popular Science magazine.
Was it going to change the world? Maybe, but I didn’t think about that.
I just thought it would be really cool!
I was planning to build a magnetic wave hovercraft!
I don’t know how I ever thought magnetic waves could levitate something above a non-magnetic surface.
Needless to say, all I ended up with was another electronic gift in my closet scrap pile.
Although my hovercraft was a miserable failure, and many of my toys never worked again, I learned a valuable lesson:
Tearing apart products is a fantastic way to get insight into how they’re built, which is important to know if you plan to build a new product.
If you’ve not done so yet I highly encourage you to find products similar to your own, and (carefully) rip them apart.
And unlike me as a kid, you might want to put them back together to gain the most insight into how they’re assembled.
Get the help you need to develop and launch a successful new electronic product inside my Hardware Academy.