Making of Honey Lemon (Big Hero 6 Bag) With LittleBits

Our kids convinced us that they wanted to be Baymax and Honey Lemon from Disney Pixar "Big Hero 6" for this Halloween.

After looking at a number of costume stores, we noticed there was nothing of any quality that we would want to put our kids in. We did buy the Honey Lemon outfit from Party City but, the only things we used were the dress, bag strap, tights and part of the visor face mask. As a family, we make costumes rarely and this by far was our most complicated to make. We stopped by the LittleBits store in SOHO and decided we would use the Radio, LED's and other cool controls that LittleBits has to give the Chemball Purse that extra bling. Our 11 year old son and 6 year old daughter (who wanted to be Honey Lemon and her brother Baymax 2.0 this year). assembled the project in the store and brought it home. Mom and Dad then got to work making the helmet and purse - which was harder than we thought.

We spent a fortune @Michaels department store on foam, clay paint etc. And through trial and error we made the Chemball Purse that lights up and dispenses balls just like Honey Lemons purse. We even made the helmet with cardboard, crayola modeling clay, Blick paint, Modge Podge and our sweat... We hope you like how we did this and inspired you to make your own. We are looking forward to getting better at making costumes. With more LittleBits and Arduino tech. We actually have Baymax done now - with wings that move and light up LED's... This was one our most favorite family projects to date!

Here is the making of the helmet too... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IhEShpVnZw

Step 1: Making of the Purse and Ball Dispenser

Materials you will need for this part are

Two types of cardboard
- a flexible type of cardboard - we used cereal box
- harder cardboard - from a box
masking and or clear tape
scissors
ruler
box cutter/straight edge blade
compass or small bowl to make edge
paper to mock up
orange foam 11 x 14
yellow cord (narrow)
clear printer paper - with access to color inkjet
bounce house balls
small balls (golf ball sized for dispense) -
air dry clay or white clay/femo (for bear)
velcro tabs
industrial strength velcro - super velcro can be found at staples
hot glue gun and hot glue sticks
orange fabric for strap

Steps

Take light weight cardboard and cut the right and left sides of purse - equal in size and shape
cut the base of the purse the same width as the sides of the purse and the desired length ideally 11 or 14 inches
1. we sized ours using the height side of the cereal box
tape sides to base to hold
size a lightweight piece of cardboard to the backside of the purse and tape from the inside and outside edge
the front base plate should be sized about 1.5 to 2 inches from the bottom and taped inside and outside
making the hinge flap - should start from just past center of the top, width should be the same - length should reach bottom.
tape the top of the hinge flap from the inside leaving a small gap, and for the outside, so flap can swing up and down
put a velcro tab on the bottom to hold the flap down, proceed to then tape the entire purse with masking tape
draw your heart on front of the purse and cut out, secure cut out space with tape
Now get your ruler - measure the inside of your purse - as this is where your ball dispenser will have to fit
after you have measured - cut two square pieces of card board
cut the a base for these two square pieces - about 1.5 inches - and tape the the square pieces
cut two pieces of cardboard the same width as the but, shorter in length - these two pieces will become the ramps for your balls to slide down
now tape these inside the box as ramps for your balls to flow down. the longer piece should be on the bottom
on the side of the box, cut the flap for the balls to come out - should be about the size of your balls
cut out a reverse L-shape piece of cardboard, the height of the flap, tape to the inside of the flap, make it more firm with masking tape - this will then make the balls dispense one at a time
place the dispenser in the box - align to and then cut out a flap now on the purse where the balls will dispense from the dispenser - cut the flap the same size (our roughly)
check alignment - and tape the dispenser flap to the purse flap. Secure dispenser inside.
Test with a ball - you are about 50% done.
Now get a 11 x 14 piece of foam - trace the side of the purse to cut out side
hot glue the cut out sides to purse
get another 11 x 14 piece of foam align to the bottom of the bag - if bag is 11 inches - the great - if 14 then great too - if less - draw the size on a piece of foam - cut and then glue to the bottom of the purse.
get another 11 x 14 piece of foam and glue onto the back of the purse - up to the purse flap. Cut the foam there
get another piece of foam - draw the same heart (trace it from bag) and cut out the heart
place cut out heart foam on the front of the bag and hot glue on
overlap any excess foam around the front flap of the bag and hot glue on - be sure to crease it first before you glue - watch your fingers ....
now take some yellow cording - put the yellow cording on all the edges you desire and around the heart -
get some orange fabric or felt - to make strap
cut fabric about 3 inches wide and the desired length you need
get the industrial strength velcro (has a glue/sticky back) position on the strap and then place onto purse
repeat for the opposite side of the strap
get your bounce house balls and slice the bottom of them -
Un-velcro you bag - then slide the balls through the strap and align to your liking.
revelcro onto the bag
print out the heart on this page onto clear printing paper. You can find another suitable image online or make one -
Let the print dry then cover with another piece of clear printing paper so it will reduce streaking
open flap to purse, align inside then tape with clear tape on the inside, close the bag and your bag is done

Be sure to watch the video... It may help. Go to step 2 to see how we configured the littlebits....

Step 2: Configure the Littlebits

Pick up 2 power supply

Bright LEDS Long LEDs

Oscillator Button

Time Out

Wirless transmiiter

Wireless reciever

2 wires Fork

Assemble as follows in the image below. 1 - Connect the power to the button sensor 2- for space - connect the long wire to the the timeout sensor 3- Set the timeout as long as you want it. 4 - connect the timeout sensor to the Oscillator 5 - Set the oscillator to how you would like the lights to blink 6- connect the oscillator to the wireless transmitter 7 - on the 2nd board - connect the wireless receiver to its own power supply 8- connect the wireless receiver to the LED master channel - in this case it's 1 9- connect the 2nd set of leds to the wirless fork Set the oscillator to the light pattern you want. The light flickering time is determined by the timeout sensor. We have ours for a few seconds after pressing the button. And enjoy the light show.. We hope you are inspired.