Hack Your Furby With AI

Turn your furby old desktop companion into a fully customised pet with artificial intelligence. With this project, you can ‘literally’ trap whoever you want inside the furby to do your bidding and become your best (or worst) desktop companion. It's all in your hands.

You might remember an episode of Black Mirror where a famous singer is trapped inside a toy robot so that all the fans can have their pop star with them. With this project you will be able to do exactly that and remember I am NOT responsible for how your furby responds to you or what it turns into. Do this project at your own risk.

For the creation of this project, I have to confess that I was inspired by the episode of Black Mirror. In it, they capture the ‘spirit’ of Hannah Montana inside a toy.

Next, as always, I leave you the necessary components to create your project. This time we have hacked a furby of the first generation, I am sure that it can be done with the most modern ones, I have looked for information about it and I know that it is possible. But without a doubt this first model is the easiest to modify and at least for me.... the most representative (or at least for those of us over 30 years old).

List of components:

-1 x Furby first generation(It is not necessary that the speaker works) (Link)

-1 x Arduino Nano (Link)

-1 x H-bridge DRV8833 (Link)

-1 x Switch (Link)

-Various cables to make the connection.

I'm going to explain in a very brief way how this project works and what components are needed to set it up, obviously the furby is a really amazing toy with some incredible mechanisms. As a good geek! I enjoy dismantling and contemplating the technology of toys from more than 20 years ago. But even so, the Furby is not able to do everything by itself, so it is necessary that we help it by updating some of its components and especially by connecting it to a computer. Although we interact with the Furby, the computer will be in charge of processing the commands and creating the responses. We start from the premise that this project uses artificial intelligence, so you will be able to define the personality of your Furby, but the answers will be generated automatically based on the ‘bias’ that you have defined... so as I said before

NO! NO! and I DO NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE CHARACTER OF YOUR FURBY!

The first step is to undress the furby, this is usually done to wash the furby's cover. On the internet you can find hundreds of videos explaining the process. Although if you ask me, I removed the fur and it went straight into the washing machine.

In order to remove the outer fabric, you only need to cut the flange that holds the cover to the body and cut the two threads that hold the ears. But as I said, here is a random youtube video where they explain the process in detail.

While our friend is doing laps in the washing machine, you have to prepare him for the next step. With a Phillips-head screwdriver, you must remove its black plastic shell. Only in this way will you be able to access the electronics to perform its operation. At this point I would like to take this opportunity to mention how fascinating I found the mechanical part of the Furby. Did you know that it only uses one motor to move all its parts?

Once you have created the circuit or purchased the kit, you can connect the components necessary for its modification.

The two main elements are the following:

Arduino nano: This is a miniature micro-controller that will be the new brain of the furby. At the same time it will be in charge of communicating the furby with the computer through the usb cable. In this way, it will be able to send the signal when we press on its belly, and at the same time the computer will tell it when it should move. This component is powered through the usb port when connected to the computer

H-bridge driver: This circuit is what allows the micro-controller to control the direction and speed of the motor. This chip is actually ready to control two motors, but it will only be necessary to use one of the two channels. The power to control the motor comes from the 4xAA batteries included in the furby.

Once the two main components for the modification have been presented, I am going to describe which wires need to be connected. This modification is completely reversible, so you can undo it in the future to restore the furry friend's behaviour.

Fortunately, most of the connections are made with connectors, so it is very easy to access the components to make the modification. You just need to be extra cautious when it comes to accessing the batteries, but don't worry, it's all taken care of!

These are the necessary connections from left to right:

1- Pushbutton: This is located on the front, on the belly of the robot. It is a large 4-pin connector, it shares the connector with the speaker.

2-Position sensor: As we are dealing with a single motor to control all the gestures, we must find a way to find out when its eyes are open, closed or even when it should open its mouth. To do this, the system has been simplified by accessing only the position switch on the back of the robot.

3-Motor: This short cable will be connected directly to the motor driver as shown in the picture.

The elements can be attached with double-sided tape or a little hot-melt gun as shown in the images.

If you were one of the lucky ones to get the kit you have nothing to worry about because it comes ready to install without the need for complex tools, you only need to use a pair of scissors, and the best thing is that if you get tired one day it is reversible! (No Furby has suffered during the process).

Once the components are ready, place the microcontroller on the left side and the h-bridge on the right side. You can use double-sided tape for this, but I recommend a hot melt gun to make sure that none of the parts move.

With the new components added you won't be able to put the black shell back on, but don't worry you will hardly notice the difference.

It is important to keep the wires away from the gears and moving parts, this will prevent it from getting stuck in the future. The switch will be left loose at the back to turn it off and extend the life of our batteries, even though these are only used to move the motor... the Arduino (new brain) is powered through the usb cable when connected to the computer. To be able to make this connection it will be necessary to make a small opening as shown in the image, this way we will be able to access the usb port without any problem.

This is one of the most important or perhaps laborious steps if you are not related to programming. But you don't have to worry, I am going to describe the way I have done it, but the good thing about it is that you can find it in a ready to use program for Windows computers. This way the process will be a bit easier and you won't have to learn programming to create your creature.

Even so, here's how this little wonder works:

1-Furby: When you press the button on the Furby's belly, it sends a signal through the USB port and changes its expression by opening its eyes.

2-Software: When the programme receives the signal, it activates the computer's microphone and transcribes the audio to text.

3-Chatgpt: Once the text of the request is obtained, it is sent to the OpenAI server to be processed by the ChatGpt engine.

4-Software: The programme receives the response from OpenAI, according to the bias (character) that has been previously defined.

5-ElevenLabs: We send the response to this tool that will read the text with any voice that has been previously trained.

6-Software: Once the audio is received, it begins to play at the same time as the Furby's movements are activated.

7-Software: When the audio signal is finished playing, a signal is sent to the Furby to restore its initial position and wait for further instructions.

When installing the software on the computer, it is necessary to install the XXX plugin to configure the sound driver correctly. In the following tutorial you will find all the information you need to do this correctly. You can start the tutorial from step 5 as the plugin is available directly in the shared folder.

To access the potential of Open Ai and Elevenlabs as we have seen in the previous point, it is necessary to create an account on the respective platforms and unfortunately pay a subscription on each of them. This is the only way to obtain the API (Access Key) that allows our programme to interact with the platforms.

To do this, and here comes the bad part ... it is necessary to PAY the subscription on both platforms in order to obtain the necessary access codes that allow us to integrate their resources into our application.

Below I leave you the two platforms in which you must register, however, if you purchase our starter kit we will provide you with the keys so that you can enjoy completely free of charge.

Subscription platforms:

-OpenAI: Generate answers (Link)

-Elevenlabs: Change the voice of our furby (Link).

Here's one of the videos I created for social media. On one side, you can see the original version in Spanish, and next to it, a (somewhat rough) translation made by AI. I hope they help you understand how this crazy project works :)

ORGINAL IN SPANISH

ENGLISH