Looking around instructables, I was surprised that my searches into making pokéballs yielded nothing, so I thought 'What could be better to make from a video game than a pokéball?' I mean, you can catch wild animals with them, completely eliminating the need for digging a giant pit and covering it with leaves, or setting up an elaborate snare! You could probably even catch humans with them!

But lets not get sidetracked. The moral issue of catching animals, forcing them to live inside little balls and occasionally fight one another is for another day. I'm just here to tell you how to make one.

This is a relatively quick and cheap way to make a pokéball, either as a prop, or to store stuff in (pikachu statues). The actual making time was 2-3 hours of solid work. It's not as easy as it looks and if I had two or three days to do it, it probably would have turned out a lot better.

I'm not liable for any injuries caused making this project. I'm paranoid, OK?

If anything isn't clear, just leave a commment and I'll sort it out. Sorry for the blurry photos, it was dark by the time I'd finished and my camera's not brilliant. Also sorry for the quality of the build, I was under pressure to finish it (I did it in about five hours, including getting the materials.

Step 1: Materials

Quite a lot needed for this one.

Materials I used (substitute in whatever you need to)

2 Cardboard eggs
Some kind of black plastic (flexible, but not too much)
2 Washers (one slightly smaller than the other)
Red and white paint
Small amount of (duct) tape
Glue

For the electronics

10(ish) really bright LEDs
9v Battery
Push to Break switch
Resistor (Calculate it for your specific LEDs here )

Tools

Stanley knife
Paintbrush

Step 2: Cutting and Painting the Eggs

First, mark along a circle around the egg that you think will get you a hemi-sphere. Remember that you have the strip of plastic to go in between them, but also remember that you can always cut a bit off afterwards.

Cut along your line with your knife. Don't cut yourself! Once you've cut both eggs, straighten up the edges.

Time to paint! Paint one half red and the other half white. Try to use even brushstrokes all going the same way to make it look neat.

Step 3: The Black Strip

This is the black bit in between the red and white hemisperes. This was perhaps the most difficult part of the build as this strip was only curved in one plane and the eggs were curved in two (if you see what I mean). So I was effectively trying to stick a flat object on a curved object. Yeah, I know, I'm stupid.

You need a strip of your black plastic that is enough to make a circle with a diameter just smaller than the hemisphere.Glue this around the edge of your white hemisphere.

You will also need a circle of the same plastic that is just larger than your big washer. We'll use this later.

Step 4: Glue and Paint the Washers

The washers form the button on the pokéball. I know the button is supposed to be filled in but I didn't have time. You can fill it in when you build yours. Glue the small washer in the middle of the big one. Paint it white.

Step 5: Cut the Circles

On a pokéball there is a black strip going round the button. For this, we're going to need to cut semicircles out of the hemispheres. Use the knife, but be very careful. One slip and your project's ruined. I'm joking, be careful so you don't kill yourself. They should be just smaller than your black circle.

Now glue the black circle to the red hemisphere, and the 'button' on the black circle. With hindsight, I probably didn't need a semicircle cut out of the red hemisphere, I could have just glued the circle on top.

Step 6: Hinge It

Put two pieces of duct tape at the back of the white hemisphere, sticking up and spaced slightly apart to give it stability. Stick the red one on to the duct tape to form hinges. Paint the section on the red, red and the section on the white, white.

You could just use normal hinges and attach them in a different way, but I didn't have much time.

Step 7: Electronics (optional)

This is only if you want a cool glow when you open your pokéball! First, wire the circuit. It should go negative end of the battery, Push to break switch, resistor, and then the LEDs. The positive end of the first LED is connected to the resistor, and the negative end is connected to the positive of the next LED. It keeps going like this (positive to negative of last LED and negative to positive of next LED) until the last one where the negative is connected to the other end of the battery.

Now put tape around all the exposed wires (we don't want any short-circuits). Put the circuit into the pokéball and glue all of the LEDs in the places you want. Tape down the battery because you might want to change that sometime.

Glue the push to break just behind the rim of the pokéball in a place where, if the ball is closed, it will be pushing down the button. You could glue it at the front, at the sides or even at the back but make sure that when it's closed, the button is pushed down.

The electronics make it so that, when the ball is closed, the lights are off, and when it's open, they're on, creating the effect of you sending out your pokémon!

You could solder in an SPST (on/off) switch in to make sure that if the ball accidently opens, you don't waste all the battery.

Step 8: Finished!

You're finished at last, and can now treat your pokémon to a brand new pokéball without having to buy them from the pokémart (they're really expensive these days)!

Ideas:

Some kind of spring release mechanism with a button that triggers it where the button on the actual pokéball is.
More LEDs!