Program · Anishinaabemowin · The talking doll
Building the doll
Companion to the doll. Technical detail lives here so the main page stays clean.
Two tiers, on purpose
Tier 1, the pilot (this summer).
Off-the-shelf recordable sound modules sewn into a locally made doll body. The kind of module used in greeting cards and teddy bears: record up to 30 seconds per module, press to play. Two or three modules give a doll a handful of phrases. No soldering, no firmware, under $40 all-in. The point is to put a real doll in a real child's hands fast and learn what matters.
| Tier 1 part | Price |
|---|---|
| Recordable sound modules with press activation, 2 or 3 | about $8 each |
| Doll body, sewn in community (fabric, stuffing, thread) | |
| Coin cells come with the modules; sewn-shut pouches keep them away from children | |
| Total: under $40, one evening of assembly | |
Tier 2, the real one.
A small microcontroller board with proper audio, loaded from the community's own recordings, built to be reloadable so the same doll design serves any Nation and any language.
| Tier 2 part (working list, prices approximate) | Price |
|---|---|
| Microcontroller with audio support (ESP32-S3 mini class) | $8 to $12 |
| I2S audio amplifier (MAX98357A class) | $6 |
| Small speaker, 4 ohm 3 watt | $4 |
| MicroSD card for audio files, 8 GB is overkill | $6 |
| Two soft buttons (squeeze sensors in the hands) | $4 |
| AA battery holder with screwed, child-safe compartment. AA over lithium on purpose: toy safety first. | $5 |
| Power switch, wiring, washable inner pouch for the electronics | $8 |
| Board + speaker + battery estimated total: $40 to $55 per doll at single quantities, meaningfully less at batch quantity | |
Behavior: squeeze a hand, the doll speaks Anishinaabemowin. Squeeze again within a few seconds, it repeats in English. A switch inside the pouch selects Anishinaabemowin-only mode for immersion households. Audio is plain WAV files on the card: no app, no pairing, no account, and a parent or a language teacher can change the phrase set by swapping files.
Safety, treated as a feature
Toys for under-threes carry real obligations: no small detachable parts, sewn-in electronics pouch, screwed battery compartment, volume capped, washable outer body with the pouch removed. Canada Consumer Product Safety Act and the toy regulations apply to anything distributed, even gifts; the small-batch stage includes getting this checked properly rather than guessed at.
Open hardware, like the rest of the project
The Tier 2 design (board choice, wiring, enclosure pattern, firmware) will be published openly, the same posture as the project's code: any Nation can build the doll and load their own language. The voices themselves are never published; each community holds its own.