A toddler receives a personalized cyberdeck
A toddler receives a personalized cyberdeck
Arduino Team — August 29, 2023
The cyberdeck community has exploded in recent years, as creators enjoy using their creativity to create custom machines to suit their tastes and requirements. But the community has overlooked a very important target market: toddlers. Young children love to play with buttons and switches, and plenty of evidence suggests that interactive toys are good for development. It is in this spirit that Josh, a hacker father, built this cyberdeck for his son for the little ones.
Unlike most cyberdecks, this one doesn't require any real math. Josh's son will not perform any penetration testing with Kali Linux. Instead, it just needs to be fun and engaging for a two-year-old. That means lots of switches, buttons, dials, and LEDs. The top has a single board computer and a promotional video player screen, but it's standalone and only loops videos. All the real magic happens in the bottom half.
Josh created this cyberdeck using a waterproof hard case. The lower half features a panel covered with buttons and switches. Each of them also has a corresponding LED. An Arduino Mega 2560 board monitors input states and then adjusts the LEDs accordingly. Right now it's only a direct one-to-one relationship, so pressing a particular switch turns a specific LED on or off. But Josh envisions more complicated relationships, like logic puzzles, which he can integrate as his son grows. Implementing them would be as simple as uploading new sketches to the Arduino.
Arduino Team — August 29, 2023
The cyberdeck community has exploded in recent years, as creators enjoy using their creativity to create custom machines to suit their tastes and requirements. But the community has overlooked a very important target market: toddlers. Young children love to play with buttons and switches, and plenty of evidence suggests that interactive toys are good for development. It is in this spirit that Josh, a hacker father, built this cyberdeck for his son for the little ones.
Unlike most cyberdecks, this one doesn't require any real math. Josh's son will not perform any penetration testing with Kali Linux. Instead, it just needs to be fun and engaging for a two-year-old. That means lots of switches, buttons, dials, and LEDs. The top has a single board computer and a promotional video player screen, but it's standalone and only loops videos. All the real magic happens in the bottom half.
Josh created this cyberdeck using a waterproof hard case. The lower half features a panel covered with buttons and switches. Each of them also has a corresponding LED. An Arduino Mega 2560 board monitors input states and then adjusts the LEDs accordingly. Right now it's only a direct one-to-one relationship, so pressing a particular switch turns a specific LED on or off. But Josh envisions more complicated relationships, like logic puzzles, which he can integrate as his son grows. Implementing them would be as simple as uploading new sketches to the Arduino.
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