To play with a toy that lets you mix and create brand-new smells

Smell and the Brain

You’ve chosen to imagine a toy that lets you mix brand-new smells. You might want to learn more about smell and the brain, or how scents connect with our memories and feelings. But remember, just because you like the smell of rotten fruit, doesn’t mean everyone else does!

Fun Facts:

A 2026 wearable scent device from Science Tokyo can mix up to eight fragrances while someone explores virtual worlds.
People in a Weizmann Institute experiment learned connections between sounds and smells while they were asleep.
In the 1960s, the Sensorama added pizza, flower, and city smells to a pretend motorcycle ride through Brooklyn.

Smell and the Brain

LISTEN

This scenario explores smell and the brain, especially our amazing smell—or olfactory—system. Smell sensors inside our noses send messages to brain networks closely connected with feelings and memories. New devices can already mix and release scents during digital experiences, and future toys might let us invent smells like we mix colors. But remember, just because you like the smell of rotten fruit, doesn’t mean everyone else does!

Fun Facts:

Linda Buck and Richard Axel won the 2004 Nobel Prize for discovering how our smell receptors help us recognize odors.
Much of an apple or chocolate’s “taste” actually comes from aromas traveling from our mouths into our noses.
In one brain scan experiment, a meaningful smell activated memory-and-feeling areas more strongly than a matching visual cue.
A handheld VR scent controller can blend four basic smells while players explore a pretend wine cellar.
People learning Japanese-German words with the same rose scent during learning, sleep, and testing remembered more words overall.

Discussion Question:

What three smells would you combine to invent a brand-new scent?

LISTEN

Physical Build:

Make a pretend smell-mixing machine with cardboard, bottle caps, paper, and markers. Create several “scent buttons” for smells like lemon, rain, popcorn, or pine trees. Combine two or three buttons and invent a name for the new smell. You can even draw what the smell reminds you of.

‍

Digital Build:

With an adult, ask ChatGPT:

“Mix three familiar smells and invent a strange new scent for a future toy.”

Choose your favorite result, then change it however you want. Draw the smell mixer, invent its scent cartridges, or build a model showing how kids control their creations.

or with a futuristic fidget toy that changes its shape, texture, and movement as you use it?

Future Fidget

Shape-Changing Materials

LISTEN

You’ve chosen to imagine a fidget that changes shape, texture, and movement while you play. You might want to learn more about shape-changing materials: materials designed to bend, fold, stretch, or transform. Just make sure your fidget has no surprise cactus mode!

Fun Facts:

Rubik’s Snake launched in the 1980s and let people twist one toy into countless-looking animals and shapes.
Harvard engineers made a soft material that can change between flat shapes, coils, and other forms when heated.
EPFL’s Mori3 robot can rearrange flat triangle pieces into many different 3D shapes.

Shape-Changing Materials

LISTEN

This scenario explores shape-changing materials, which can transform after receiving a signal. Some bend with heat, while others respond to magnets or electricity. Engineers use these ideas to build soft robots and moving materials, and some pieces can even rearrange themselves into completely different shapes. Future toys could become squishy, twisty, bumpy, or smooth as we play. Just make sure your fidget has no surprise cactus mode!

Fun Facts:

In 2010, one Harvard-MIT sheet folded itself into either a boat or airplane after receiving different electrical signals.
MIT’s ElectroVoxel cubes use tiny electromagnets to spin around each other and rearrange their whole shape, even during zero-gravity flights.
Stanford’s fingertip-sized origami robot can fold, crawl through tight spaces, and steer. It was designed to deliver medicine inside the human body.
Harvard created soft material that can morph into domes, saddles, and fin-like movements inspired by stingrays and jellyfish.
In 2026, Cornell engineers built groups of tiny robots that flow and reshape together almost like one moving material.

Discussion Question:

How could one fidget work well for people who enjoy different textures and movements?

LISTEN

Physical Build:

Make your own transforming fidget using cardboard strips, paper, tape, string, and paper fasteners. Connect several pieces so they can fold, spin, bend, or flip into different forms. Try making at least three shapes from the same pieces, then redesign any joints that get stuck.

‍

Digital Build:

With an adult, ask ChatGPT:

“Invent a fidget toy that can change into five different shapes and textures.”

Pick the transformations you like best and replace any you do not. Draw each stage like a transformation guide, or build a model that changes between several of your designs.