Tinker Max (25 results)

PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000.

PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000.

PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000.

PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000.

PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000.

PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000.

PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000.

PAP. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware - What's really inside a Spirit Halloween animatronic When a monster suddenly turns its head, starts talking, or jumps toward you, it can seem almost alive.But underneath the costume is a machine.In The Amazing History of Spirit Halloween Animatronics, C.J. Tinker & Max Tinker take curious kids behind the scares to explore the engineering that brings Halloween monsters to life.Young readers will discover: - How motors, gears, cranks, and linkages create movement- What servos do-and why not every animatronic uses them- How wires carry power and signals through a machine- How sensors and triggers can start an animatronic's performance- How controllers coordinate movement, lights, and sound- How speakers give monsters their voices- Why timing, surprise, scenery, and character can make a scare work- How engineers prototype, test, manufacture, package, and improve animatronics- How to investigate a machine without taking it apartAlong the way, readers examine memorable Spirit Halloween animatronics including Jumping Spider, Grim, Wolfie, Nightcrawler, and Wacky Mole, using each one to investigate a different engineering idea.They'll also follow an animatronic from the first idea to the finished Halloween-store monster, build a simple cardboard mechanism of their own, explore an animatronic anatomy guide, and use an Animatronic Investigator Checklist to investigate real machines.Written for kids ages 7-12, this illustrated nonfiction adventure combines Halloween, engineering, robotics, history, and hands-on curiosity without talking down to young readers.Because understanding how a monster works doesn't make it less amazing.Sometimes it makes it even cooler.Watch like a fan. Look like an engineer.And the next time something at Spirit Halloween suddenly comes to life, ask: How did they make it do that Part of the Animatronics for Kids series by C.J. Tinker & Max Tinker. …

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware.

Taschenbuch. Condition: Neu. Neuware.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. "That's it?" Max Tinker had learned that when Grandpa says "I found something you might want to see," the thing is usually old, usually broken, and usually has wires. This time it was a snowman. Black top hat, blue vest, and the enormous smile of someone extremely happy about being a snowman. Then Grandpa said: "Push the button." Music started. The snowman swung side to side. His hat tipped. His arm moved. And a strand of snowflakes lit up and began spinning beside him - around and around, never once twisting the wires. Max crouched down. He stood on his toes. He checked behind it. "That thing is impossible." "Those are usually the interesting ones." The Amazing History of Spinning Snowflake Snowman is the investigation that followed: a store-shelf Christmas decoration from 2002, taken apart question by question, until a cheap plastic snowman turns out to be a small masterpiece of engineering on a budget. INSIDE THIS BOOK - How the snowflakes spin forever without tangling a single wire- How one motor can move a body, a hat, an arm, and a strand of lights - and why adding more motors would have made the snowman worse- What the circuit board actually decides, and what it only appears to decide- Gemmy Industries, the company behind a singing fish, and what Billy taught them about making things move- Why Christmas decorations didn't always move, and what changed- How inflatable decorations work, and why the air doesn't just leak out- That there isn't one Spinning Snowflake Snowman - there's a whole family of them- What Christmas shopping actually looked like in 2002- What breaks on a twenty-year-old snowman, and how people bring them back- Who is still keeping these things alive, and why they bother AND ONE ANSWER MAX DID NOT ENJOY Somebody designed this snowman. Somebody chose one motor instead of four, decided how the hat should tip, and worked out the snowflake mechanism. Max searched. He found product listings, collector records, photographs, videos, repair threads, and a dozen different versions. He never found a name. That turned out to be the most useful thing in the book. Ordinary objects get made, sold, used, broken, and thrown away without anyone writing down who decided what. So this is also a book about how to investigate something when nobody has handed you the answers - and about why "we don't know yet" is a real answer, not a failure. FOR KIDS WHO TAKE THINGS APART Fourteen chapters, in two parts, with recurring features written for curious readers: MAX WANTS TO KNOW - the questions that kept getting in the wayFOLLOW THE MOTION - tracing movement backward through a mechanism to find its source You don't need a Spinning Snowflake Snowman. You don't need tools. Grandpa spends most of the book refusing to let Max near a screwdriver, on the grounds that you shouldn't open a machine before you know what you're looking for. Book three in the series that began with The Amazing History of Furby and The Amazing History of Teddy Ruxpin. Furby asked how you make a machine feel like a creature. Teddy asked how you make a machine tell a story. The Snowman asks a quieter question: how much can you get out of one small motor and a very good idea? An independent, unofficial book by two people who wanted to know how it worked. Not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by Gemmy Industries or any other company mentioned in these pages. Perfect for readers ages 8 to 14, reluctant readers who love facts, STEM and maker families, holiday-decoration collectors, and anyone who has ever looked at something ordinary and thought: hang on, how is it doing that? Guess. Test. Change your mind. This item is printed on Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.…

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Max Tinker found a cat on his grandfather's workbench. It had fur, four legs, whiskers, and a battery compartment.When he ran his hand down its back, the cat moved.That is where this book starts - with a kid, a slightly suspicious robot cat, and the only question that really matters: how did it know?"It's fake.""I wouldn't say that too loudly.""Why?""You might hurt its feelings.""It doesn't have feelings.""Probably not.""Probably?"THE AMAZING HISTORY OF FURREAL FRIENDS is the story of how toy animals learned to respond to us. It is told the way a good workshop conversation actually goes: questions, wrong guesses, whiteboard diagrams, a lot of arguing about what words mean, and one unlucky toy dog that gets taken completely apart.Across fourteen chapters, Max and his grandfather trace the whole chain of events hiding under the fur.WHAT'S INSIDEWhy a wind-up toy that walks straight into a wall is not the same as a toy that notices youWhat a sensor actually does, which turns out to be far less than most people assumeHow six sensors and a pile of simple rules add up to something that feels like a personalityWhy the original 2002 FurReal cat became nearly impossible to find in stores by ChristmasHow you hide a machine inside Butterscotch, the 40-inch pony a child could sit on, for three hundred dollarsWhat changes when a toy has to walk somewhere instead of staying where you put itHow you design a dragon when nobody has ever seen oneWhat to do when a FurReal Friend stops working, and how to tell "broken" from "needs batteries"Along the way: Tamagotchi in 1996. Furby in 1998. Sony's AIBO in 1999. Squawkers McCaw the talking parrot, Biscuit the life-size golden retriever, GoGo the walking pup, StarLily the unicorn, and Torch, the 2016 dragon that roasts an imaginary marshmallow.WHAT KIDS ACTUALLY LEARNThis is an engineering book wearing a very convincing cat costume. By the last page, a reader has picked up ideas that transfer to every machine they will ever meet: Input and output, and the chain of events in betweenThe difference between what you observed and what you assumedWhy "it moves" and "it responds to me" are two completely different problemsHow to diagnose something before trying to fix itWhy acting alive is not the same as being alive - and why our brains fall for it anywayIt also takes seriously a question most books skip: why do we talk about a machine as though it has feelings, when we know perfectly well that it doesn't?A NOTE ON FORMATThis is a book of explanations, not a picture book. There are no photographs or illustrations inside - the diagrams are the ones Max draws on the whiteboard, printed as text, the way he wrote them. The story does the showing.WHO IT'S FORCurious readers roughly ages 7 to 12, and the adults who get asked "but how does it work?" and would like a real answer. No prior electronics knowledge is needed. Nothing has to be bought, built, or plugged in - though anyone who finishes this book and immediately goes looking for a screwdriver is behaving exactly as intended.If there is an old FurReal Friend in your closet, this book will change what you see when you look at it.This is an independent work of nonfiction. It is not authorized, endorsed, licensed, or sponsored by Hasbro, Inc. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…

Condition: New. Print on Demand.

Condition: New. Print on Demand.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. A grandson. A grandfather. One very strange furry robot.In 1998, a fuzzy creature with enormous ears and a language nobody had ever heard before showed up in toy stores. Within three years, more than 40 million of them had sold around the world. Parents lined up before dawn. Resellers charged triple. And somewhere along the way, a United States intelligence agency decided that Furby was not allowed in the building.Max Tinker wasn't alive for any of it. But he had questions.Who invented Furby? What is actually inside one? What is Furbish? Did Furby really learn English from the kids who owned it - or did it only seem that way? And did the government really ban a toy?With help from his grandpa C.J., a lifelong tinkerer who knows his way around motors, gears, sensors, and code, Max spent months chasing down the answers. The Amazing History of Furby is everything they found: the full story of one of the strangest and most successful toys ever made, plus a look underneath the fur at the engineering that made a machine feel alive.INSIDE THIS BOOKThe two inventors behind Furby, the prototype that nearly failed its most important demo, and the aluminum foil that saved itHow a single motor moves the eyes, ears, and mouth - and why that was the hardest problem in the whole designWhat Furbish really is, and the clever reason its inventors gave a toy its own languageThe truth about Furby "learning" English - and why the real trick was more impressive than the mythWhat actually happened at the NSA in 1999, separated from what the internet has repeated ever sinceThe 1998 Christmas craze: shortages, scalpers, and a $35 toy selling for hundredsEvery generation that followed, from the 2005 Emoto-Tronic Furby to screen eyes, apps, Furblings, Bluetooth, and the 2023 Furby that deliberately left the technology outCollectors, repairers, customizers, and the internet's strangest fan creation: Long FurbyWhy our brains insist that a machine with moving eyes must have feelingsFOR KIDS WHO TAKE THINGS APARTThis is a history book that keeps turning into an engineering book. Every chapter includes hands-on features written for curious readers: MAX WANTS TO KNOW - the questions Max asked along the way, answered in plain languageC.J. EXPLAINS - a closer look at the sensors, motors, animatronics, and programming behind what Furby doesFURBY FACT - the surprising, strange, and occasionally hilarious detailsMYTH OR REALITY? - sorting the real Furby stories from the ones people just kept repeatingTINKER WITH IT - design challenges, experiments, and questions you can try yourself, no screwdriver requiredNo experience with electronics, robotics, or coding is needed. Neither Max nor most of his readers started with any. The book builds from one idea - sense, decide, respond - into a real understanding of how interactive machines work, and it ends by handing the reader a blank page and a design sheet for a creature of their own.An independent, unofficial book written by two Furby fans who wanted to know how it worked. Not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by Hasbro, Inc.Perfect for readers ages 8 to 14, reluctant readers who love facts, STEM and maker families, nostalgic adults who owned one in 1998, and anyone who has ever looked at a talking toy and wondered what was really going on in there.Nineteen chapters. Twenty-five years of very strange engineering. One question that keeps leading to another. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. "That's it?" Max Tinker had learned that when Grandpa says "I found something you might want to see," the thing is usually old, usually broken, and usually has wires. This time it was a snowman. Black top hat, blue vest, and the enormous smile of someone extremely happy about being a snowman. Then Grandpa said: "Push the button." Music started. The snowman swung side to side. His hat tipped. His arm moved. And a strand of snowflakes lit up and began spinning beside him - around and around, never once twisting the wires. Max crouched down. He stood on his toes. He checked behind it. "That thing is impossible." "Those are usually the interesting ones." The Amazing History of Spinning Snowflake Snowman is the investigation that followed: a store-shelf Christmas decoration from 2002, taken apart question by question, until a cheap plastic snowman turns out to be a small masterpiece of engineering on a budget. INSIDE THIS BOOK - How the snowflakes spin forever without tangling a single wire- How one motor can move a body, a hat, an arm, and a strand of lights - and why adding more motors would have made the snowman worse- What the circuit board actually decides, and what it only appears to decide- Gemmy Industries, the company behind a singing fish, and what Billy taught them about making things move- Why Christmas decorations didn't always move, and what changed- How inflatable decorations work, and why the air doesn't just leak out- That there isn't one Spinning Snowflake Snowman - there's a whole family of them- What Christmas shopping actually looked like in 2002- What breaks on a twenty-year-old snowman, and how people bring them back- Who is still keeping these things alive, and why they bother AND ONE ANSWER MAX DID NOT ENJOY Somebody designed this snowman. Somebody chose one motor instead of four, decided how the hat should tip, and worked out the snowflake mechanism. Max searched. He found product listings, collector records, photographs, videos, repair threads, and a dozen different versions. He never found a name. That turned out to be the most useful thing in the book. Ordinary objects get made, sold, used, broken, and thrown away without anyone writing down who decided what. So this is also a book about how to investigate something when nobody has handed you the answers - and about why "we don't know yet" is a real answer, not a failure. FOR KIDS WHO TAKE THINGS APART Fourteen chapters, in two parts, with recurring features written for curious readers: MAX WANTS TO KNOW - the questions that kept getting in the wayFOLLOW THE MOTION - tracing movement backward through a mechanism to find its source You don't need a Spinning Snowflake Snowman. You don't need tools. Grandpa spends most of the book refusing to let Max near a screwdriver, on the grounds that you shouldn't open a machine before you know what you're looking for. Book three in the series that began with The Amazing History of Furby and The Amazing History of Teddy Ruxpin. Furby asked how you make a machine feel like a creature. Teddy asked how you make a machine tell a story. The Snowman asks a quieter question: how much can you get out of one small motor and a very good idea? An independent, unofficial book by two people who wanted to know how it worked. Not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by Gemmy Industries or any other company mentioned in these pages. Perfect for readers ages 8 to 14, reluctant readers who love facts, STEM and maker families, holiday-decoration collectors, and anyone who has ever looked at something ordinary and thought: hang on, how is it doing that? Guess. Test. Change your mind. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…

Condition: New. Print on Demand.

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. A teddy bear that told stories. That part was easy to explain. Then Max watched him again. Teddy Ruxpin's mouth moved while he talked. His eyes moved too. And the movements weren't random - they landed at the right moments in the story, every time, from a cassette tape. That is not how cassette tapes work. Max Tinker had about seventeen questions, and the first one was the one that started everything: how does a cassette tape make a teddy bear perform? He called his grandpa. C.J. Tinker has spent a lifetime taking machines apart, and he watched the bear for a while before he said anything. Then: "How is the animation synchronized with the recording?" Exactly. Now they had a mystery. The Amazing History of Teddy Ruxpin is what they found - the full story of the 1985 toy that tried to do something no toy had done before, and the surprisingly clever engineering that made it work. INSIDE THIS BOOK - The secret hidden on the cassette: a stereo tape with two jobs, one channel for the story and one carrying instructions for the machine- Ken Forsse, and why Teddy began as a character years before he became a toy- Grundo, Grubby, and Newton Gimmick - the world built so a toy would have somewhere to go- Why the picture book that came with Teddy was part of the performance, not an accessory- What is actually under the fur: motors, mechanisms, and why moving the eyes mattered as much as moving the mouth- How two animatronic toys could perform the same story together- The people who programmed the performance - because recording behavior is not the same as recording sound- Worlds of Wonder: how a company can sell an enormous hit and still end up in bankruptcy- Every Teddy that followed, as cassettes gave way to newer ways of storing a story- Why a bear from the 1980s still has people repairing him today FOR KIDS WHO TAKE THINGS APART Every chapter turns a piece of toy history into an engineering question, with hands-on features written for curious readers: MAX WANTS TO KNOW - the questions Max asked along the wayC.J. EXPLAINS - a closer look at the motors, mechanisms, sound, and timing behind what Teddy doesTEDDY FACT - the surprising detailsMYTH OR REALITY? - sorting what's true from what's just been repeated a lotMAX CHECKS THE TAPE - how to actually verify a claim about an old toyTINKER WITH IT - experiments and design challenges you can try with cardboard, paper, and a pencil You don't need a Teddy Ruxpin to do any of it. You don't need electronics, and you definitely don't need a screwdriver - the book is clear that taking apart a forty-year-old animatronic is usually a bad idea. You also don't need to have read our first book, The Amazing History of Furby, though Max would like you to know it exists. Furby asked how you make a machine feel like a creature. Teddy asks something different: how do you make a machine tell a story? Along the way the book teaches two research habits worth more than any single fact. Ask which Teddy - there isn't only one, and the machines inside them aren't the same. And don't turn "I think" into "I know," because a story repeated in ten places doesn't mean ten people checked it. An independent, unofficial book by two people who wanted to know how it worked. Not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by any company that has produced Teddy Ruxpin. Perfect for readers ages 8 to 14, reluctant readers who love facts, STEM and maker families, parents and grandparents who remember 1985, and anyone who has ever watched a machine do something and wondered how it knew when. Thirteen chapters. One cassette tape. One very good mystery. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…

Condition: New. Print on Demand.

Single Issue Magazine. Condition: Good. First Edition. 116 pages. Features: Lovely Frankline Arbuckle cover art features Santa being photographed in the snow by Karsh while his reindeer look on; Colour ad for the Parker '51' pen inside front cover; One-page Birks Jewellers ad features pricey diamond adornments; One page ad for Canadian General Electric features their Musaphonic radio and also includes the C406, C405, C409, C408 and C625/6; Two-page Recall ad features Christmas gift suggestions - and their 1954 prices!; Sir Winston Churchill reaches eighty; Jordan is Britain's Anti-Britihs Ally; Lovely two-page colour ad for the Chrysler New Yorker Deluxe (dark green) features formally-attired folks; One-page colour ad for Westclox clocks; Does Israel Want to Start a War? - article with photo of woman holding casing of bomb which killed nine Arabs; How Lawyers Pacifique Plante and Jean Drapeau Licked the Montreal Underworld - article with photos of these men as well as Harry Davis, Louis Bercovitch, Fernand Dufresne, Harry Ship, Albert Langlois and Judge Caron; Colour Karsh portraits of Field-Marshal Viscount Montgomery, Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Le Corbusier, Pablo Picasso, Marshal Tito, Pablo Casals, Augustus John and Andre Malraux; I'm Leaving Canada - And I'm Glad - departing U.S. Vice-Consul in Toronto vents his spleen after two years north of the 49th; When the Women Went on Strike (fiction); What Happens to Family Allowances? - the full story of the world's most generous baby-bonus scheme - with photos of Mrs. Zillie Minor and some of her 18 children, who receive Ontario's largest family-allowance ($91); Sh-Boom! - The Crazy Career of The Crew Cuts - wonderful photo-illustrated article on this Toronto-based pop singing group; The Forgotten Whirlwind Who Put the World on Time - a photo-illustrated Maclean's flashback article on Canadian engineer Sir Sandford Fleming who gave the world standard time, planned most of Canada's railways, championed the Pacific Cable, and designed our first stamp; The Colossal C.O.D. Swindle (fiction); She Knows the Kind of Children You'll Have - Dr. Norma Walker of the University of Toronto is a heredity counselor who heads the genetics department of Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children - article with photo; Never Ask a Woman the Way; How TV is Changing Your Life; Trappers Hate the Wily Wolverine - which isn't smart enough to stop trying to fight porcupines; Great one-page colour ad for the Park Sheraton Hotel in New York; Fantastic two-page colour ad for the 1955 Dodge Regent (greenish-blue); One-page Seagram colour ad features painting called 'Montreal' by Albert Cloutier, A.R.C.A., whose photo is included; Fantastic two-page 1955 Plymouth ad features red and white Savoy; Centrefold colour ad for GE Appliances features Santa and GE Christmas gifts; Hudson's Bay Scotch Whisky ad features Kwakiutl Indian mask; Canadian Westinghouse ad includes photos of the Radasonic table radio and Combinette radio-phonograph; Nice two-page colour ad for the 1955 Dodge Custom Royal (white on green); Two-page colour ad for the 1955 Pontiac "Laurentian" Sport Coupe (white on red); Wonderful two-page colour ad for the 1955 De Soto Fireflite (black with pale yellow trim); Two-page ad for the 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air Sport Coupe (yellow with white hardtop); Two-colour ad for McCulloch chainsaws features a Model 33 saw; Labatt's 50 Ale ad features illustration of hulking boxer; Colour ad for the Watchmakers of Switzerland highlights Daniel Jeanrichard, 'the man who founded a tickk-tock town'; Back cover colour ad for Community cutlery; and more. Moderate wear. Unmarked. A quality copy of this magnificent vintage issue. Size: Folio - over 12" - 15" tall. Arbuckle, Franklin (cover art); Karsh, Yousef; Johnson, Bruce; Norris; Macpherson, Duncan; Whalley, Peter (illustrator).…

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Max Tinker found a cat on his grandfather's workbench. It had fur, four legs, whiskers, and a battery compartment.When he ran his hand down its back, the cat moved.That is where this book starts - with a kid, a slightly suspicious robot cat, and the only question that really matters: how did it know?"It's fake.""I wouldn't say that too loudly.""Why?""You might hurt its feelings.""It doesn't have feelings.""Probably not.""Probably?"THE AMAZING HISTORY OF FURREAL FRIENDS is the story of how toy animals learned to respond to us. It is told the way a good workshop conversation actually goes: questions, wrong guesses, whiteboard diagrams, a lot of arguing about what words mean, and one unlucky toy dog that gets taken completely apart.Across fourteen chapters, Max and his grandfather trace the whole chain of events hiding under the fur.WHAT'S INSIDEWhy a wind-up toy that walks straight into a wall is not the same as a toy that notices youWhat a sensor actually does, which turns out to be far less than most people assumeHow six sensors and a pile of simple rules add up to something that feels like a personalityWhy the original 2002 FurReal cat became nearly impossible to find in stores by ChristmasHow you hide a machine inside Butterscotch, the 40-inch pony a child could sit on, for three hundred dollarsWhat changes when a toy has to walk somewhere instead of staying where you put itHow you design a dragon when nobody has ever seen oneWhat to do when a FurReal Friend stops working, and how to tell "broken" from "needs batteries"Along the way: Tamagotchi in 1996. Furby in 1998. Sony's AIBO in 1999. Squawkers McCaw the talking parrot, Biscuit the life-size golden retriever, GoGo the walking pup, StarLily the unicorn, and Torch, the 2016 dragon that roasts an imaginary marshmallow.WHAT KIDS ACTUALLY LEARNThis is an engineering book wearing a very convincing cat costume. By the last page, a reader has picked up ideas that transfer to every machine they will ever meet: Input and output, and the chain of events in betweenThe difference between what you observed and what you assumedWhy "it moves" and "it responds to me" are two completely different problemsHow to diagnose something before trying to fix itWhy acting alive is not the same as being alive - and why our brains fall for it anywayIt also takes seriously a question most books skip: why do we talk about a machine as though it has feelings, when we know perfectly well that it doesn't?A NOTE ON FORMATThis is a book of explanations, not a picture book. There are no photographs or illustrations inside - the diagrams are the ones Max draws on the whiteboard, printed as text, the way he wrote them. The story does the showing.WHO IT'S FORCurious readers roughly ages 7 to 12, and the adults who get asked "but how does it work?" and would like a real answer. No prior electronics knowledge is needed. Nothing has to be bought, built, or plugged in - though anyone who finishes this book and immediately goes looking for a screwdriver is behaving exactly as intended.If there is an old FurReal Friend in your closet, this book will change what you see when you look at it.This is an independent work of nonfiction. It is not authorized, endorsed, licensed, or sponsored by Hasbro, Inc. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.…

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. A grandson. A grandfather. One very strange furry robot.In 1998, a fuzzy creature with enormous ears and a language nobody had ever heard before showed up in toy stores. Within three years, more than 40 million of them had sold around the world. Parents lined up before dawn. Resellers charged triple. And somewhere along the way, a United States intelligence agency decided that Furby was not allowed in the building.Max Tinker wasn't alive for any of it. But he had questions.Who invented Furby? What is actually inside one? What is Furbish? Did Furby really learn English from the kids who owned it - or did it only seem that way? And did the government really ban a toy?With help from his grandpa C.J., a lifelong tinkerer who knows his way around motors, gears, sensors, and code, Max spent months chasing down the answers. The Amazing History of Furby is everything they found: the full story of one of the strangest and most successful toys ever made, plus a look underneath the fur at the engineering that made a machine feel alive.INSIDE THIS BOOKThe two inventors behind Furby, the prototype that nearly failed its most important demo, and the aluminum foil that saved itHow a single motor moves the eyes, ears, and mouth - and why that was the hardest problem in the whole designWhat Furbish really is, and the clever reason its inventors gave a toy its own languageThe truth about Furby "learning" English - and why the real trick was more impressive than the mythWhat actually happened at the NSA in 1999, separated from what the internet has repeated ever sinceThe 1998 Christmas craze: shortages, scalpers, and a $35 toy selling for hundredsEvery generation that followed, from the 2005 Emoto-Tronic Furby to screen eyes, apps, Furblings, Bluetooth, and the 2023 Furby that deliberately left the technology outCollectors, repairers, customizers, and the internet's strangest fan creation: Long FurbyWhy our brains insist that a machine with moving eyes must have feelingsFOR KIDS WHO TAKE THINGS APARTThis is a history book that keeps turning into an engineering book. Every chapter includes hands-on features written for curious readers: MAX WANTS TO KNOW - the questions Max asked along the way, answered in plain languageC.J. EXPLAINS - a closer look at the sensors, motors, animatronics, and programming behind what Furby doesFURBY FACT - the surprising, strange, and occasionally hilarious detailsMYTH OR REALITY? - sorting the real Furby stories from the ones people just kept repeatingTINKER WITH IT - design challenges, experiments, and questions you can try yourself, no screwdriver requiredNo experience with electronics, robotics, or coding is needed. Neither Max nor most of his readers started with any. The book builds from one idea - sense, decide, respond - into a real understanding of how interactive machines work, and it ends by handing the reader a blank page and a design sheet for a creature of their own.An independent, unofficial book written by two Furby fans who wanted to know how it worked. Not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by Hasbro, Inc.Perfect for readers ages 8 to 14, reluctant readers who love facts, STEM and maker families, nostalgic adults who owned one in 1998, and anyone who has ever looked at a talking toy and wondered what was really going on in there.Nineteen chapters. Twenty-five years of very strange engineering. One question that keeps leading to another. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.…

Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. A teddy bear that told stories. That part was easy to explain. Then Max watched him again. Teddy Ruxpin's mouth moved while he talked. His eyes moved too. And the movements weren't random - they landed at the right moments in the story, every time, from a cassette tape. That is not how cassette tapes work. Max Tinker had about seventeen questions, and the first one was the one that started everything: how does a cassette tape make a teddy bear perform? He called his grandpa. C.J. Tinker has spent a lifetime taking machines apart, and he watched the bear for a while before he said anything. Then: "How is the animation synchronized with the recording?" Exactly. Now they had a mystery. The Amazing History of Teddy Ruxpin is what they found - the full story of the 1985 toy that tried to do something no toy had done before, and the surprisingly clever engineering that made it work. INSIDE THIS BOOK - The secret hidden on the cassette: a stereo tape with two jobs, one channel for the story and one carrying instructions for the machine- Ken Forsse, and why Teddy began as a character years before he became a toy- Grundo, Grubby, and Newton Gimmick - the world built so a toy would have somewhere to go- Why the picture book that came with Teddy was part of the performance, not an accessory- What is actually under the fur: motors, mechanisms, and why moving the eyes mattered as much as moving the mouth- How two animatronic toys could perform the same story together- The people who programmed the performance - because recording behavior is not the same as recording sound- Worlds of Wonder: how a company can sell an enormous hit and still end up in bankruptcy- Every Teddy that followed, as cassettes gave way to newer ways of storing a story- Why a bear from the 1980s still has people repairing him today FOR KIDS WHO TAKE THINGS APART Every chapter turns a piece of toy history into an engineering question, with hands-on features written for curious readers: MAX WANTS TO KNOW - the questions Max asked along the wayC.J. EXPLAINS - a closer look at the motors, mechanisms, sound, and timing behind what Teddy doesTEDDY FACT - the surprising detailsMYTH OR REALITY? - sorting what's true from what's just been repeated a lotMAX CHECKS THE TAPE - how to actually verify a claim about an old toyTINKER WITH IT - experiments and design challenges you can try with cardboard, paper, and a pencil You don't need a Teddy Ruxpin to do any of it. You don't need electronics, and you definitely don't need a screwdriver - the book is clear that taking apart a forty-year-old animatronic is usually a bad idea. You also don't need to have read our first book, The Amazing History of Furby, though Max would like you to know it exists. Furby asked how you make a machine feel like a creature. Teddy asks something different: how do you make a machine tell a story? Along the way the book teaches two research habits worth more than any single fact. Ask which Teddy - there isn't only one, and the machines inside them aren't the same. And don't turn "I think" into "I know," because a story repeated in ten places doesn't mean ten people checked it. An independent, unofficial book by two people who wanted to know how it worked. Not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by any company that has produced Teddy Ruxpin. Perfect for readers ages 8 to 14, reluctant readers who love facts, STEM and maker families, parents and grandparents who remember 1985, and anyone who has ever watched a machine do something and wondered how it knew when. Thirteen chapters. One cassette tape. One very good mystery. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from our UK warehouse or from our Australian or US warehouses, depending on stock availability.…