untitled

These messages (or sounds) are activated when you shake either of the

puppet’s hands or press the puppet’s nose. Alas, adding the electronics to

the puppet makes it unsuitable for use on your hand, but you can’t have

everything.

You can see the finished talking puppet (okay, you have to imagine the sound

part) in Figure 7-1.

Here are the types of activities that you’ll do to create your own talking toy:

1. Put together an electronic circuit containing a sound synthesizer chip,
   an amplifier, and a speaker.


2. Hook up the circuit to your computer to program the sound synthesizer
   with sentences, music, or whatever strange sounds you’d like to play
   around with.


3. Place the box containing the circuit in the puppet and connect switches
   in the puppet to the circuit.

Figure 7-1:

We affec-

tionately

call our

talking

puppet

Murmuring

Merlin.

140 Part II: Sounding Off!