locking mechanism on pin-art toy

Factual Questions
1

there’s a new feature on the old, pin-art impression making toy. by means of a battery powered electric motor, the pins can be locked into place. my question is: how does this work?
(i bought this toy for my niece at target recently. it has plastic pins rather than the steel pins i’ve always seen before.)

thanks,
rick

2

We’d have to see the toy in question. I can easily conceive of a mechanism – if, in addition to the plates filled with holes supporting the pins at each end you have another such plate between (also with holes, through which the pins pass) that can be moved relative to the other two, then pulling that one slightly out of line with the other two plates will make it press down on the pins, locking them in place. I’d put some sort of compressable plastic or rubber on the holes in this plate, so it can bear down with some friction to prevent the pins from moving, but will not bend the pins.
You don’t need a motor for this, but maybe a motpor driving, say, a worm gear can apply gentle and even pressure that will prevent the pins from being moved as they’re clamped down.

3

thanks.
that’s basically what we came up with other than the worm gear concept.

i forgot to mention the most perplexing part, though. it takes about 20-30 seconds to lock and it seems the center plate or plates would only need to move a tiny fraction of an inch.