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Toy Workshop · round 1A game against confident nonsense
Owl vs Fox

Two Advisors

An owl and a fox argue about the answer. One of them is right, the other is convincingly wrong, and the kids decide whom to trust.

Ages 8–1410–20 minutessiblings or a class
Both figures are printed, each with its own speaker, so the voices really come from the owl and the fox. The token sits in the dip in front of the owl.

Play a round

Ask a question and listen to both advisors. Then put your token in front of the one you believe, or on “neither”. Sometimes both are wrong. In the toy, the code picks the question and decides who tells the truth, and Claude writes both arguments. This demo carries 10 rounds written in advance, the same way the toy keeps an offline set.

Press “Ask a question” to start.Round 0

Owl

…

Fox

…

The truth comes out at the end of every round.

Baloney Detector

Right0 / 0
Streak0
Best streak0
Fooled bynobody yet

The model never sees which answer is true until the code tells it which side to argue.

Wow moment

The fox sounds so sure of itself that both kids agree and slide the token in front of it. Then the light comes on under the owl, and the explanation shows exactly why the fox’s argument felt right. The next round, they listen more carefully.

A sample round

CodePicks a question from the database: “Is a bat a bird?” It decides that the owl argues the truth this time.
Owl(voice from the left) “Of course not. A bat feeds its babies milk and has fur, so it’s a mammal. Its wings are skin between its fingers.”
Fox(voice from the right) “Oh, come on. It flies, it has wings, and it hunts insects at night just like birds do. What else could it be?”
KidsPut the token in front of the one they believe. A Hall sensor under each spot notices the magnet.
Reveal“The owl was right.” A short explanation follows: why the fox’s argument sounded convincing. Now and then both are wrong, and the kids have to choose “neither”.
TableThe Baloney Detector shows how the kids are doing over time.

Why a tenth time · what AI adds

Why a tenth time

The Baloney Detector keeps score over weeks, so there is always a streak to beat. The rounds where both advisors are wrong stop the kids from assuming that one of them must be right, and siblings can play against each other or as a team.

What AI adds

Here the AI lies convincingly on purpose, under the code’s control, so that kids learn a confident voice proves nothing.

Project Vend showed that splitting roles between separate agents gives better control over them. Here the split is the game itself: one advisor gets the truth, the other gets the misconception, and neither decides which is which.

How it’s built

Printed parts

  • Two figures, an owl and a fox, on a shared base.
  • Each figure has its own speaker box inside, so each voice comes out of its own character.
  • Two dips for the token and a third spot for the “neither” token, with magnets sealed into the tokens.

Electronics

  • ESP32-S3 with two MAX98357 amplifiers and two 40 mm speakers.
  • Three A3144 Hall sensor modules, one under each token spot.
  • WS2812 LEDs that light up for the reveal.
PartWhat forCZK
ESP32-S3 DEVKit (LaskaKit)the brain448
2× MAX98357 amplifierone voice per figure196
2× 40 mm speakerinside the owl and the fox178
3× Hall module A3144owl, fox and “neither” spots90
WS2812 LEDsthe reveal~40 estimate
Magnets for the tokenssealed into the printsnot priced
Parts total, magnets and filament not included~952 (about €40)

One round costs about 0.3 CZK: two short calls to Claude, one per advisor.

Architecture

Question databasecommon, harmless misconceptionstruth + myth + why it convinces(curated, held by code) Code decideswho argues the truth this round,or that both get a wrong answer Claude as the owlargues the side it was given Claude as the foxargues the side it was given Two voices, two speakersPiper on the Mac, played from the figures Token and revealHall sensors read the token;code reveals the truth, lights theLED and updates the table Offline set50 rounds generated in advance,played when the Mac is away

The model

  • writes both arguments in two voices, owl and fox
  • only dresses up misconceptions from the database, never invents new ones

The code

  • holds the truth and picks who argues what
  • reads the token and always reveals the truth at the end

Safety, offline and the road ahead

Safety and offline

The misconceptions are harmless on purpose: nothing about health, medicine or safety. The truth is revealed at the end of every round, so nothing false is left standing.

There is no microphone; the kids answer with a token. An offline set of 50 pre-generated rounds plays when the Mac is away.

Road ahead

  • First prototypeA weekend for the figures and electronics, plus an evening for the question database.
  • Full versionBoth speaking figures, three token spots, the reveal lights, the Baloney Detector and 50 offline rounds.

An idea that stayed on paper. It later fed into a bigger quiz-show toy in which a professor lies on purpose and the kids buzz in to catch him, and the owl and the fox became its variant for ages 10–14.