Adventure Time's BMO: GBC Mod Replica

"It's Adventure Time, 
Come on, grab your friends 
We'll go to very distant lands 
With Jake the Dog and Finn the Human 
The fun will never end, it's Adventure Time!"

Hey Instructabrarians, What Time is It?...... ADVENTURE TIME!  

Folks, I frickin' LOVE this show!  Aside from perhaps Regular Show (Hmmm, perhaps I should dedicate a future 'ible to that too...), Adventure Time is, in this author's opinion, the single greatest show ever to come out of 2010.   And who can argue?  This Cartoon Network original series about a young human boy (Finn The Human) and his magical transforming dog (Jake The Dog) as they travel the mystical Land Of Ooo is such an amazing character based show, featuring such an excellent cast of characters, stellar animation, great humor and Crowning Moments Of Heartwarming  that it's hard not to fall in love with it.   

But perhaps one of the things I love best about AT is the show's own extreme dedication to it's fans.  Frederator Studios has done a tremendous job of reaching out to their fans from providing them with the show's storyboards and character sketches  to even creating an entire blog just to showcase all of the fantastic fan art people have created.  That's dedication and as both a fan of the show and of reverse engineering I have a lot of respect for that.

Now I know I've posted quite a bit of interesting reverse engineering projects based on PIXAR characters (ie Luxo Jr, Auto, my Microbe Obliterator cleaning bot) but for my first and only Adventure Time fan art I knew I had to make it great, as a tribute to both the show and its fantastic fanbase.  This build took me a long time to complete but I am finally done and I can't wait to show all of you!  So in honor of the last week of Instructables' Video Game Month (aw....) and the show's very first anniversary (April 5th), I decided to build a real working replica of Finn and Jake's cute video game system Beemo!


Also, I just realized this- 10th Official Step By Step Instructable ever! 

Editor's Note: Special thanks to Daniel van Beek for his Beemo Fan Art and my Instructabrarian shout out for this week also goes to houseofdarkly for this site's very first Adventure Time themed instructable.  Finally, since Adventure Time is a show that seems to strive on How To guides, I offer this Instructable in response to Frederator's Finm Hats.

Step 1: SHMOWZOW!: Build Overview

One of the coolest characters on Adventure Time is my all time personal favorite BMO (pronounced Beemo).  For those of you who haven't seen the show, Beemo is Finn and Jake's cute living video game system.  He's a handheld portable game device that sort of resembles a mixture of old Nintendo video games, so I decided to fully play up on this aspect.

Every gamer owns or at least has owned a Game Boy Color at one point in their life, it's one of the basic staples of any Nintendo fans! So I knew that if I was going to make my first video game mod, I wanted it to make it simple so it could appeal to every gamer. I also love how the Game Boy Color is like a miniature suped up version of the NES system, so I took a bit more liberties with his design to make it look more Nintendo- evocative.

The key factors I wanted when I started this build were: 

1. Make Beemo look exactly like his hand drawn counterpart
2. Play as well as he did on the show
3. Make him a giant throwback to Nintendo- so that even if visitors have never seen the show before, they could still tell he was a portable gaming device.

Now admittedly this Instructable is going to be very difficult for me to categorize because, like the character, it's an amalgamation of so many different things. Not only is a fully realistic replica of the character from the show but Beemo is also part workshop project, part electronics project, part arts and crafts, part plush figure and also a little bit of a chemistry experiment, all of which were incredibly fun for me to work on.  

So the way I'll be presenting this build, is in sort of a two-build process both in terms of ease.  The first half will be slightly more simple and straightforward, and this the less electronically interested fans who simply want an adorable plush replica of the character, and the second part is for the more dedicated engineers out there who want to take it a step further and modify him to play real video games, namely a Game Boy Color. So not only is this build perfectly adorable, he's also perfectly functioning.

 

Editor's Note: Sorry to go off on tangent again.  I know I've posted a couple of pretty interesting animated replicas in the past, but believe me when I say Beemo is definitely one of my all time favorites.  I've been literally planning out this build for months now, ever since my December break and spent a lot of weekends putting him together.  So yes, I am indeed "invested in this very cute video game".

Comments

[jessyratfink]

I have to say that I've not seen the show but that little guy is just ADORABLE.

Great job!

[SHIFT!]

Thank you jessyratfink! That was actually one of my main goals from the start- to make BMO look appealing to people who haven't seen Adventure Time before. Thanks!

[happyjo]

Hamacow!!! You are like THE most devoted Adventure Time fan ever! :D
:D Mathematical Beemo!

[SHIFT!]

Thanks happyjo! You know, I've been waiting a really long time to be able to finally post this project on your Adventure Time Fan Group! 

[happyjo]

:D yay! Well, I feel absolutely ecstatic! :D

[SHIFT!]

ATTENTION EVERYONE: I'm sorry but different to what I might've said in the past, I do not sell any Beemos Replicas.  The reason being is because, at this current time, the last one took an insane amount of time to make (four months for one) and I unfortunately now that I'm in school, I don't have the time.

HOWEVER, should some miraculous blessing bestow me and I do come up with a better method of building him or the University Control Brains do find the time, I might put one up on auction on ETSY.  And I will of course add in the link.

[dtooth]

you should make lot's and the sell them I know i would buy 1 or 2

[SWIFT!]

Hi SHIFT,

Could you measure you finished copy and give me an exact size of the finished product? I want to get the plexiglas as close as possible to yours.

[SHIFT!]

Sure Swift! Just give me a while though, I'm currently at school and don't have BMO on me at the moment.

If it helps, BMO's height is exactly the same as a gameboy color's and follows the exact same proportions as the papercraft on Cartoon Network.

[jvr0s]

Hi SHIFT!
First off, that is a fantastic job! I'm incredibly impressed with it!
I had a question, Does each button take two cables to connect to the board of the GB? Also, where did you buy the buttons and circuit board? It'd be my first time trying something like this, so I have no idea where to start.
Thanks so much for the instructions, if I manage to get this together I'll die a happy man.

[SHIFT!]

Hey jvr0s!

Terribly sorry it took me this long to respond back to you, I was out visiting my family in California and didn't get a chance to check my instructables email.

First, thank you very much for your mathetmatical response! To address your question, I am a bit confused what you mean by "cables". Are you referring to the individual ground and circuit wires themselves or are you referring to the singular cable that connects everything to the controller? In the former, No. The controller buttons only have one wire leading to the controller PIC board. The other wire leads directly to GRND (ground), in order to be connected to the entire controller terminal.

I have to warn you- if this is your first time doing this, attempting this project is ill advised. I ended up going through at least two GBCs before I could get a working prototype myself. But if you're determined, it's not impossible.

Also Radio Shack is your best friend!

Good Luck!

[IamBMO]

Whoa bro! this BMO totally knock the shells! awesome job man! I really like it as an adventure time fan my favorite part you can make it like a whiteboard and you can change BMO's face. How long does this take to make???

[loudpopper]

Sir, you created the perfect BMO, especially for us, Adventure Time Fans. Well, can i ask how much is the cost for all of the materials (excluding gameboy) ? And would gameboy advance sp would do instead of gameboy color? Your reply would be appreciated highly :) Thanks!

[Kitana Kellaway]

Great!!!

[gordonfreemanisalive 23]

i have never seen the show, but, this is awesoome!!!

[megaduty]

So gotta make this for my daughter! Thanks!

[FFDPfanJL]

can you use regular game boy advance games with this? if so id like to build this

[Treeboy21]

Hi first of all love the project.

Im just having trouble understanding the button wiring and was wondering if it was at all possible to have some help. If its not to much work i was wondering if you could draw some line between connections on this picture.

Thanks.

[SHIFT!]

Hi Treeboy21,

Sorry this message took me a while to get to you.

Anyway, I apologize but I didn't happen to draw any circuit diagrams or anything while I was working, I was really just testing out connections while I was working and I don't really seem to remember that much.

What I suggest doing is using a volt meter and testing out the connections between the button pads. It may seem a bit daunting at first, but after you find the common ground connection, everything falls into place.

[mechaninja]

Woah... we have memes, then a drawing of BMO, then drawings of a GBC, then schematics... trippy bro...

[halo grunt]

I love this instructable, but, a game- boy game is called a game cartrige not disc, no affence

[BlueMoonWishes]

Do you think this would work with the Gameboy Advanced instead? :O
I really dun wanna take apart my Gameboy Colour, or buy a new one for this~

[SHIFT!]

Really depends what Gameboy Advance you're talking about. If it's a GameBoy Advance SP then you can certainly take it apart and refit it inside the small box. If it's a Gameboy Advance Original, however, then the only way you can do it is if you made Beemo much much fatter than he was in the show, since the horizontal shape of the original won't fit well within Beemo's box body.

I actually tried experimenting with other Gameboys before I decided on a Gameboy Color and found the ones that work the best are the vertically designed ones, since they have the most in common with Beemo's body.

[ben ster]

have you thot about make a bisinus

[octochan]

I was just thinking that it might be possible to do with a GBA SP, especially since the screen ratio is a lot closer to Beemo's face.

I can't wait to get a triwing screwdriver and start taking my GBA apart for this!

[SHIFT!]

Good Luck!

[BlueMoonWishes]

Oh okay cool! :D
Yeah, I was thinking of using the original GBA, but I think I can get an old SP from a friend or something. Thanks~
Your BMO is soooooo adorable! I'm really excited to get started on him :D <3

[SHIFT!]

Thanks! Post a picture when you get it done!

[Cloud1UP]

Hello SHIFT. A couple of months ago I posted saying I was going to try and build the working model! Well I kinda left the project sitting there, but NOW I am going to find the tools and make it. However I look at the two models(the drawing one, and the gaming one) and I wonder which one is better in the long run. I was wondering if you are still able to draw on BMO's face on the gameboy model. If you can then GREAT! I'll make that one. If you cant then I'm still making the gameboy one. Sorry for making you read. Gah reading! It's hurting my brain! It's filling it with too much glob!... sorry.

[arrggg]

AWESOME!!!!!!!
unfortunatly, I have no clue how you did this or how to get the parts.
would you possibly consider making one for me? I will gladly send you the money for it when it is finished. please contact me at [e-mail]

THANKS!!!

[knexsuperbuilderfreak]

I LOVE THIS SHOW! :O i need to find me a gameboy now..

[achris4321]

Also do you think the long range remote can fit into beemo?

[SHIFT!]

Sure, just use a longer chord.

[achris4321]

Can beemo's body be any slimmer because i really dont want it to be that fat because of storage problems :)

[SHIFT!]

Well, you're really asking yourself two questions here. 1) Can Beemo's body be slimmer?, but 2) Do you want it to have the electronics and still be a replica? Because with Beemo, Yes his body can be made slimmer but keep in mind the current body pattern is made with the exact specifications of housing a Gameboy Color circuit board, while still being completely in scale with the actual character.

So yes, Beemo can be made thinner, but you might have a more difficult time wiring in all the electronics.

[achris4321]

Bemo rules with that cool long rang remote.

[SHIFT!]

Thanks! I'm thinking of also making his brand new one as well, as seen in "Too Young"!

[busterbuster18724]

i loooooovvvvvvveeeeee adventure time!

[FlyinMunky40]

Hey! Can you please give me an approximate price on all the parts?
Thanks!
(AWESOME build by the way!)

[SHIFT!]

Thanks FlyinMunk40! It's hard for me to give a pricing on the parts, even an approximate one, since most of the parts were already purchased and lying around my house. But, if I had to wager, I'd say a good $45 depending on how cheap you get the GBC for.