Tin Can Walkie Talkies

Over the weekend my daughters and I were able to do a few projects with varying degree's of success.  Overall it was a great success and more importantly we all had fun.  The first project that I am going to cover is the Tin-Can Walkie Talkies.

As you may know I have been searching for a way to build analog walkie talkies and finally decided to go the route of the tin can walkie talkies as a building block to the real walkie talkies.  A simple project, but I did the majority of the work on it today as I didn't want them to hurt themselves with scissors as the make a hole in the cups.

A simple design as you see above.  The hardest part was trying to find a place to test these while instructing the girls to hold the string taunt.  They kept wanting to walk closer together which would wreck the experiment.  Not to mention a cat who likes to jump and pull on the string.

I had each of my daughters in their own room and I stood in the bathroom between the rooms as directed traffic so to speak.  They were able to talk and hear each other, I had them each say a number with door slightly closed so they could not hear the actual talking.  They were able to pick up the words.

They were impressed with the project and it only took a few minutes of finding parts and building, another great project done.

Walkie Talkie Dead end

I tried ordering the DIY kit today and shortly there after I was sent an email stating that the company does not sell these items anymore.  They were the only ones I could find on the internet, and I dont think my soldering skills are that great that I could build something like this.  

From more reading I guess that its illegal to build Walkie Talkies, I could be wrong something about using illegal frequencies and stuff.  Maybe Ill just go to like toys r us and buy a cheap set and pull them apart and then have the kids build them into another set, not a true DIY but it could still be fun.

Or once I take them apart I can maybe remove some of the wiring and make it kid connector friendly so they can feel that they did something for the project.  I still want to be able to have them built into a Lego style Walkie Talkie, so once again that will be part two of the project.

Now to figure out how to make it "Kid connectible circuits"

Update on walkie talkies

I think I found a cheap walkie talkie project that I can do with the girls.  I will have to get it to the house first and check it out before we build it.  After initial look over I want to put it inside Lego's not the paper thing this one comes in.

There is a picture of them online but I think it will be better if I have them before me so I can pull out Lego Designer program and build them on there and then order the pieces.  Once everything is here, we can start the fun.

Site for the Walkie Talkie

Walkie Talkie Book