A $25 Maker Quest! ... My Bubble Blowing Animatronic Trilobite Puppet

A $25 Maker Quest! ... My Bubble Blowing Animatronic Trilobite Puppet

She blows real bubbles!

This project was part of our $25 Maker Quest! A group of other makers and I sent boxes of stuff to each other and had to make a project with the supplies. 

Hannah Makes

Make It & Fake It

8 Bits and a Byte

My box came from Hannah Makes who sent me a bubble wand, a Trilobite plush, and some creepy tongs with hands on the end of them. This was a tough one - what do you do with that?!?

I decided to try my hand at animatronics and make the Trilobite into a bubble-blowing robot. It was a lot of fun because I had never tried to "move air" before so I learned how air blowers work and made my own out of cardboard. I also used a servo motor to make his mouth open and close so that he could literally "blow" the bubbles!

Going through this process has inspired me to make more stuffed animals and puppets which is something I loved as a kid. I hope you will try to make one! It could be a great addition to a kid's birthday party where you could modify the project to showcase their favorite plush or fictional character. :)

You can watch the whole process here:

For more:

To see all of the funny, genius, and bizarre $25 Maker Quest projects, view the playlist below - please like and subscribe to these fantastic maker's YouTube channels!

Supplies I used in this project:

Maker Quest Items:

Additional Craft Materials:

Electronics:

  • A Toy Motor & Motor Heads (I got this set of many to choose from)
  • A Servo Motor & Motor Head - I used a Geek Servo with a Technic Lego Arm
  • An Arduino that can run a Servo - I used an Adafruit Feather because that's what I had on hand, but that was overkill for the simple opening and closing of a mouth. A Nano or Trinket would be cheaper and work fine too. :)

Tools:

  • X-Acto knife and straight edge to cut the cardboard
  • Scissors
  • Seam-Ripper
  • Needle & Thread to match the purple Trilobite and the red felt
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