Local middle school girls enter national competition for toy design
The teens created a new electronic game --- a creation of PVC pipe, hardboard and wire they slaved over for almost eight months --- called the A.M.I. for Automated Movement Instructor."
Their efforts earned them a berth in the TOYChallenge 2006 National competition held April 29 in San Diego.
The contest was created and is run by Sally Ride Science, and was sponsored by the Hasbro toy company and Sigma Xi scientific research society.
The team's toy is loosely based on an energetic game called Dance, Dance Revolution, in which participants rhythmically step on flashing lights in time to dance music.
With the A.M.I., youngsters use their hands to push frog-shaped buttons that flash in patterns. To keep costs down, the girls planned that gamers would bring their own CD or MP3 player and listen to tunes of their choice as they played.
While the team didn't bring home any prizes, the girls' coach, Cornerstone instructor Cindy Maldonado, said they packed something else with them when they left California --- knowledge.
It was just an incredible experience," Maldonado said.
Their creation didn't work quite how they had hoped, said Lane, but in the end, it didn't seem to matter.
"I think it went really good," she said. "We didn't get any major recognition, but we were really proud of our presentation and how our group worked out."
The teens -- eighth-graders Lane Backstrom, Amy Brenner, Kayla Eicholtz, Jodi Hamlik and Niki Johnson and seventh-grader Meredith Schmutz -- started work on the project in mid-October.
Their goal with the game was to get people their age to stay active in the hopes of combating high obesity rates among teens, the team members said. The device is aimed at ages 11 to 15.
"Most of us enjoy music and because most people enjoy music everyday, we just thought to incorporate exercise with your music would help to make this game interesting," Amy said. "We knew it would be really good for kids our age or younger. We just thought it would be all good."
After submitting their design, specifications and a cost analysis for the A.M.I. for the preliminary round, the girls were thrilled to learn they were going to San Diego with their game.
They named themselves the TOYtinkers. Maldonado could not help her team with construction. She could direct and guide, but all the hand-work was up to the girls.
"I had to step back and just watch, which is difficult," she said.
One team member, Jodi, had helped her father work on computers, she said. But even that expertise wasn't much help. One afternoon before the contest, she and the other girls toiled with wires and lights.
"For one, what I did with my dad isn't as complicated," she said. "I basically would just strip wires and connect them to where he told me to."
The team members weren't completely in the dark, though. After struggling to come up with a way to run the game, they decided to turn to an old favorite.
Enter Simon.
A simple electronic game created in the 1970s, Simon was also based on the concept of pushing lighted buttons in patterns.
The teens tore into a sacrificial Simon, trying to figure out what made it tick."
With the Simon as a guide, all the girls had to do was adapt the game to a larger format. That it may sound easy, with less than a week to go before the contest, the girls were sweating it.
They had cut wood for the game's backboard to the proper size with a jigsaw and sliced through plastic pipe to create a collapsible frame.
They had drilled holes for lights and wired in basic, small central processing units behind them. Plastic frogs covered the Christmas-sized lights, their wide grins beckoning small hands to reach out and touch.
It looked good -- except for the mass of black-and-white wires in the back. Lane had marked each wire with a different colored tag, in the hopes of making the job of intertwining them easier.
To the untrained eye, the potential was there. Still, the team members were uncertain. Would it work when they got to San Diego, they were asked during an interview 10 days before the competition.
They all laughed.
"We're supposed to be demonstrating it for the Longview Christian School's sixth grade class on Monday before we leave," Lane said. "It should be working by Friday," she added.
Everyone chuckled again.
Their first test came in front of the sixth-graders at Longview Christian School.
By then, the previously exposed wires were covered with black fabric.
After a short presentation, Kayla pushed the button to turn the game on.
The lights flashed. And flashed. Kayla pushed another button.
No patterns. Just blinking.
The sixth-graders sat politely while the team explained the game's concept, showing them how they would play if the toy were working.
"The trial and error --- that's part of the good stuff," Maldonado said.
"They've really learned that things don't always go your way, and you have to make adjustments and there isn't a single way to do it. There are different options, if this doesn't work, it doesn't mean we quit."
After fine-tuning the game, the girls packed it up and sent it by Federal Express to San Diego.
"I know they're kind of nervous about that," Maldonado said before the package went off. "They plan to send it off with a prayer."
Their hopes went with it.
When they arrived in California, the team worked on the game again in their hotel room.
They talked about what strengths each member had brought to the table.
"Dealing with problem solving, frustration, working things through successfully, not quitting, even when things didn't work out the way they wanted or expected," Maldonado said. "Looking at the process as a scientific process ... it was invaluable."
Then it was time to relax. They trekked to Dodger Stadium and took in a game.
"At the Air and Space museum the next day, the TOYtinkers and 52 other teams crowded into the rotunda.
"It was surprising to see so many TV cameras. There were boom mikes all over the place," Maldonado said. "The girls just blew that off and set up and did a fantastic job with their presentation."
When they demonstrated the game, it still didn't work quite the way they had hoped. Cornerstone wasn't among the contest winners.
The girls were maybe a little down, but not out, Maldonado said.
"The one seventh-grader said she intends to do it again next year," their coach said.