The Creaturepod is a portable walkie talkie system that enhances children’s interactive play. It mimics the fictional Creaturepod from the popular children’s television show, Wild Kratts.

The design features an Arduino Mini Pro 328, 2.2-inch TFT liquid crystal display (LCD), DRA818U voice transceiver module, electret condenser microphone, speaker, and buttons for channel/frequency selection and push-to-talk capability. Bitmap images are stored on a microSD card and displayed on the LCD to indicate the currently selected channel. A 2000mAh Lithium-Polymer battery provides more than 20 hours of playtime before recharging is necessary.

This design is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-3.0 United States license. It is not for sale.

Documentation:

• Block Diagram
• Schematic
• Bill-of-Materials
• Assembly Drawing
• PCB: Gerber Plots and OSH Park
• Source Code: Arduino

Additional Resources:

• Slides: Activate Engineer Powers! Creating a Real-Life Creaturepod
• Pictures (Flickr)