I worked as an electrical engineer in the toy industry from 2008-2011. This page highlights some of the electronic interactive toys I engineered, and in many cases also contributed design and invention.
Ghostbusters PKE Meter: Mattel Adult Collector prop replica
I researched, engineered, specified, and managed production of this prop replica for the adult collector market. This is a very carefully researched prop replica based on detailed study of both the first and second films in the series. It features vI and vII modes, which alter the LED and sound sequences to match their differences in the two films.
I originally planned to make the meter have some imaginitive features, perhaps the ability to detect ghost figure accessories. But Carl Kamph, the designer on the project, was adamant that this item be a perfectly-realized prop replica.
So, rather than give the meter any automatic behavior as scripted in the films, I hewed faithfully to the design of the original prop: it was “performed” by the actors during filming: arms are raised and lowered by button presses, and the rate of activity controlled by a knob.
This one was a lot of work to get right. I bought an original Iona polisher off eBay (the housing from which the original prop was built), and we used it as an exact design and scale reference. I had to go to China to finalize the programming and mechanical engineering. But it came out well!
Overall the prop was very well received by the collector community. A review with nice photos from Captain Toy, a review with good details from MTV Geek, and a nice comparison between the prop replica and the polisher from Ghostbusters Fans.
The meter sold out in a couple of days. It has been going for between two and five hundred dollars on eBay since. A great vote from the community for our adult collector innovation products.
A note on scarcity: I see a fair number of opinions that we may be purposely employing some sort of enforced-rarity strategy, but that isn’t true. Occasionally we underestimate the popularity of one of our ideas; but what value could any company have in seeing items resold for more on the secondary market when, if they had made more items in the first place, they could have sold them?
Images borrowed from Captain Toy and Ghostbusters Fans.
Ghostbusters Ghost Trap: Mattel Adult Collector prop replica
I researched, engineered, specified, and managed production of this prop replica for the adult collector market. I’m proud of the carefully-researched prop-replica mode, which I designed from dailies from the original movie.
But I’m especially proud of my design for a motorized body and color-LED animation system, and my work programming light, sound and motion sequences for the product’s movie-spirit mode. True-to-film lights and timing, great opening and closing effects, some killer machine sounds, nice blue electrical sparks, and for extra credit I threw in a captured ghost banging around in there at random intervals. Sound designer Matt Thorne did some great mixes for the opening and closing sequences.
Overall the prop was very well received by a pretty tough crowd. Nice details and kudos here, and lots of photos here. The trap sold out quickly, and they have been going for between two and four hundred dollars on eBay ever since; nice community vote for our adult collector innovation products!
A note on scarcity: I see a fair number of opinions that we may be purposely employing some sort of enforced-rarity strategy, but that isn’t true. Occasionally we underestimate the popularity of one of our ideas; but what value could any company have in seeing items resold for more on the secondary market when, if they had made more items in the first place, they could have sold them?
A final detail: my original design for this item had everything in the final product, but also smoke! In a dim room, when the doors opened and the interior glowed pulsing red, smoke flowed out of the box. When you captured a ghost, I reversed a tiny fan inside and the smoke sucked back in as the doors closed; the effect was just like in the film, and it was amazing!! Unfortunately the feature proved too complex to produce, so we had to remove it.
Here’s an interview with me in conjunction with the original release of the Ghost Trap prop replica.
Images borrowed from MTV Geek and Plastic Maniac.
WWE Electrovision Belt: Mattel interactive toy
I ideated, researched, prototyped, proofed, engineered, programmed, specified and managed the development of this unique persistence of vision toy with synchronized sound animation routines. I also designed and managed the development of custom software to support designer-friendly creation of complex sync sound animations for the system. The WWE Electrovision Belt has entrance themes and animations for six wrestling superstars.