Cute and Connected: Carl the climate bear is a selfmade Tonie Character | Franciska Nowak

This cute Polar Bear talks about the Climate Crisis himself

Tutorial: How to make a toy character a climate activist

You can make anything speak. Don’t you think so? Go! We use the Toniebox, an innovative audio system for children. To make objects on the box sound, you first have to implant a digital heart in them. All you need is a kettle, a drill and some glue. Take the editorial mascot, for example, to test how readers react to talking objects. Which thing suits your editorial department, your city? Do they have an eagle, a lion or a kangaroo?

You need a Creative-Tonie from the toy trade for about £12 as source material. This is a character that you can play with your own content. This is followed by a small operation in which you insert the chip from a creative clay figure into your own figure. This operation in “Magic Tonies” is popular among parents. (Note: Such Magic Tonies may not be used commercially. For an editorial-tony you have to agree with the manufacturer of the figures.)

Ingredients

All the ingredients to turn a toy into a talking reporter | Franciska Nowak

• A creative tonie (appearance doesn’t matter, is destroyed)
• A hard plastic figure who should tell her story (here: a polar bear boy)
• 1x drill 5mm
• superglue
• sound box
• (optional) small neodymium magnet
• (optional) Acrylic glass floe

STEP 1: Register your Tonie figure

You need a user account on tonies.com and a Toniebox. Press one ear of the Toniebox for 5 seconds until the platform lights up blue. Place the Tonie on the box. This will register the new creative tone.

STEP 2: Cook Tonie figure

Place the purchased Tonie figure in warm water. It should be about 85 degrees warm. Wait 12 minutes. The figure consists of two parts, the head and the body. The heat dissolves the glue.

Diving Expedition: Hot water dissolves the glue of the Tonie figure. | Franciska Nowak

STEP 3: Remove sensor capsule

Carefully pull the head apart from the foot of the Tonie figure. The warm water should have dissolved the glue. Pull vertically, do not bend the parts! When pulling apart, you should see the small black sensor capsule that is the heart of the Tonies. It looks like a spool. Take it out carefully. We will plant it in a new figure.

Stretch bench: The Creative Tonie is pulled apart vertically without bending | Franciska Nowak

STEP 4: Build Reporter Tonie

Think about where the capsule might be in the new figure. An optimal place is a base. Drill a hole in it. Then add a drop of superglue.

Operation’s underway: The hole is drilled into the toy figure | Franciska Nowak

STEP 5: Insert capsule

The small black capsule is an NFC tag. The capsule must be placed vertically in the figure and must not be more than five centimeters from the ground. It must also be inserted the right way round.

Bear becomes smart: the sensor capsule is inserted into the hole | Franciska Nowak

TIP: The original figures carry a small neodymium magnet in their base. This is how they hold on to the box.

STEP 6: Edit content for a Creative Tonie

Create an account under my.tonies.com. Log in. Look for the creative tone. (The preview image shows what the Tonie figure looked like before.) Give him the name of his current appearance. In the example: “Carl the Climate Bear”.

Now comes journalism: upload your own audio content. Tonie processes audio content in MP3, M4A, M4B, WAV, OGG, WMA formats.

STEP 7: Test

Natural habitat: Carl the Climate Bear feels most at home on the audio box | Franciska Nowak

Test your new reporter tonie, ideally with children. Then take a look at tactile.news and see what we are currently doing with toys.