Tile Toy is for real!

Tiletoy, for real this time
A while back I wrote an entry on Tiletoy, an open project for building some mini networking toys with a sort of retro-chic look. The site had claimed that they were going to release everything under some form of open license so that people could build their own Tiletoys, but the date for releasing that came and went without any news. Today I googled for Tiletoy and look what popped up! Totally awesome! Too bad the site is a flash site. Annoying. I don't see what they need flash for. Anyway, this is great news, and even after reading their discouraging checklist I am undaunted. (I can't link to specific pages of their site because their site is flash trash and does some lame url rewriting, so I reproduce it here)

1. you must be confident in soldering and understanding the circuit for debugging it


2. you need to find the components yourself


3. you need a pic programmer and pic basic compiler


4. you need serial to radio frequency module / telemetry module (check above)


5. you need a software talking to you radio module in your serial port (MaxMSP patches available)


6. you need understanding in asynchronous serial communication for making games

I will somehow find a way to have my very own set of Tiletoys. But after a closer look at the list I am feeling less confident. Soldering and circuit building, check. I can burn my way through a breadboard with the best of them. Finding components, check. Thanks, Jameco. Pic programmer and compiler, uhh, Jameco again? My wallet is starting to get hot. Serial to radio frequency and telemetry modules, uhh, telemetry? Is this Nasa or a toy shop? Radio module in my serial port? That tickles. Asynchronous serial communication? Is that like ATM? (Heh, remembered that one from Victor Frost's class.) Sigh. Worst of all is that each of these toys cost about $120 to build, and since they are not very interesting without a whole set, we are talking about some serious cash. Let's add a #7 to that list. "Lots of damn money for something that might not work." Hmm. If only I were a EE. I could probably figure out how to make these things cheaper. I'm talking bluetooth. I'm talking centralized processing. I'm talking modular doosey-whatsits. Let's face it, I don't know what I'm talking about. Phooey.