Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/732

 Toys That Obey Your V^oice

Talk, sing, whistle, clap your hands and they perform their antics for you

���WITHIN the last two or tlircu years a number of inventors [ia\e Uirneti their aUention ^'' to the making of toys. The re suit has been a series of con- tri\ances of great original ity and novelty. As an example of these new arrivals, the various sets made up of toy I-l:)eams and cog-wheels and such by which >'oung builders construct mar- vels in the way of bridges and engines and clocks, etc., may be cited. Still another toy consists of long wooden rods which may be put together in such assorted ways that anything from a windmill to a realistic airship ma>- come into being. Rut for sheer novelty, a new st\le of toy devised by a New York inventor. Mr. H. diristian Berger, has easily strongest hold on the atten- tion.

E\erybody knows that a loud sound may so jar a tele- ])hone transmitter that it will cause a wa\e of elec- tric current to flow through an electromagnet, or in some cases, a relay, am cause the electromag- net or the relay to act. If the jar is great enough to cause the electromagnet to release a spring or le\'er you can im.igine the possibilities.

On this |)riiiciple Mr. Berger has buiil a little kennel six or

��The secret of the wireless pup's obedience to the clapping of your hands is a microphone

��bexen inches high with a wooden bull-dog in mission finish standing half way out of the entrance. Blow a shrill whistle cir clap your hands and the dog in- slanth' leaps out of his ken- nel. He seems ali\e, and yet, when you pick him up,\oufind that he is so much dead wood, without a spring or me- chanical attach- ment of any kind. The ex- planation is that the sound of the whistle or of the luuul- clapping has af- fected a tele- phone transmitter concealed within the kennel, causing an electromagnet to re- lease a spring which propcled the dog outward.

Still another t(>>- which utilizes the .sound-wave-telephone-transmitter jirin- cijile is an imposing toy bank. To de- posit money in the bank, you place the coin on a lever King across the front steps, clap >our hands, and presto!

���.lAT PICCE OF MtlAL OR'nOPPl*

��Place the coin on the lever. clnp your hands, and presto! the lever "flops" it into the bank

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