Technology for toys has come a long way since the days of cooing dolls and giggling monsters. Dolls, plush and plastic characters can now come to life with amazing movements and features like dancing, growing hair, barking and roaring, sprouting wings, standing up and walking, tumbling and flipping over.

Embedded technology enables your child’s favorite friends to recognize and respond to sounds, music, voices and faces. Current toys display light, move realistically, can download and deliver new content from the web, or synch to smart phones and tablets.

Today’s tech-savvy children have high expectations when it comes to their favorite animated characters and friends. Fisher-Price wants to see your innovative ideas for mechanical dolls, plush and plastic characters that bring these toys to life with compelling, entertaining and interactive features that will make them the next must-have item.

Think about these considerations and requirements when submitting your ideas:

Requirements:

- Concepts that demonstrate a working mechanism via video or prototype will receive priority consideration. A breadboard that demonstrates the function and mechanism outside of the sample is acceptable, and at a minimum, a sketch of a proposed mechanism will be considered, but is not optimal

- Keep in mind $20 maximum cost of goods when proposing mechanisms, components and materials

- Mechanisms must be able to be manufactured and should utilize known production techniques (your submissions do not have to be fully engineered, but you should take this into account for future production)

- Your mechanisms should utilize traditional toy standard direct current motors (expensive high-tech. motors are great but will not be affordable in production)

Other Tips:

- Check out www.fisher-price.com to see current offerings and partners

- Research current and past successes in mechanical dolls, plush and animatronics from the toy and electronics industries

- Read current online consumer reviews from this year’s hot items

- Incorporate humor, storytelling and music that may be integral to the character

- Products should have demonstrable features that stand out at retail

- Raise the bar on what’s been done in the past regarding robotics, animatronics or use of technology

- Your idea should have interactive attributes and content to keep children engaged and coming back for more

- Think of including elements of surprise and the unexpected

To learn more about Fisher-Price, visit www.fisher-price.com.

We ask for well-communicated ideas. This includes filling out our easy-to-use submission form to the best of your ability. Upload images, sketches and any other media that support your idea. Tell us your story. We even encourage you to create a video demonstrating your innovation. Don’t worry. We aren’t expecting you to break out your inner Spielberg. Please keep videos to less than 2 minutes.

As always, your submission should be unique and protectable (patent protection is highly-preferred, but not a conclusive requirement).

Each idea costs just $25 ($20 for Edison Insiders) to submit and, as long as you maintain Edison Insider membership, your idea may be submitted to as many searches as you would like at no additional cost. Click here for more details on Live Product Searches.