Hack your Teddy Ruxpin with Arduino, Raspberry Pi and Alexa

If you had a Teddy Ruxpin in the ’80s and ’90s, you probably remember inserting special tapes and hearing him read stories to you. Whether you loved or hated the little bear, it was hard to forget his weirdly moving mouth and eyes. Today though, with small and cheap development boards readily available, this mechanical system is just begging for a retrofit. In this project, hacker “Tinkernut” employed an Arduino to sense the intensity of a sound input, and in turn used it to allow Ruxpin to lip sync to any audio source. This could be a song, story, or even output from a virtual assistant. He chose the latter option, and after installing Alexa on a Raspberry Pi, used the two boards in tandem to control the retro toy. With this setup, he can ask it such questions as “how tall is the empire state building?” and have it answer back with audio and a semi-synced bear mouth. Have an old Ruxpin lying around? Give new life to it by following Tinkernut’s instructions here. This entry was posted by Arduino Team on Thursday, December 22nd, 2016 and is filed under Arduino, Featured, Uno. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. You must be logged in with your Arduino account to post a comment. How to control Arduino board using an Android phone Arduino IDE 1.6 is released! Download it now DIY less-expensive Thermal imaging camera Send in the clones My open-source, do-it-yourself cellphone (built with Arduino). Welcome Arduino Yún – the first board combining Arduino with Linux A low-cost robotic hand (tutorial) mirroring your own fingers Microsoft and Arduino: new partnership announced today Nice drawings of the Arduino UNO and Mega 2560 Arduino IR Remote Control David Cuartielles (Spanish) MAKE: Blog’s Arduino archive Tom Igoe’s PComp Site