Minion Light Box (night Light)

Introduction

I am making a little box that looks a bit like a minion. Insinde the box there is a light, whenever you close the box the light will turn on. The eyes and mouth of the minion are see through so the box becomes a little light.

Must haves:

- The box have to be opened and closed

- The box needs a light inside

- The light inside the box can only turn on when the box is closed

- The eyes and mouth should be open to see the light coming through these gaps

- The box needs a name bord

Should haves:

- There has to be a see through paper in front of the eyes and mouth gaps

Could haves:

- The legs could be gaps too

- There could be a see through paper in front of the legs gaps

Won't haves:

- The box has different colors, yellow for the body and blue for his clothes

- You can set a different light color with a remote

- You can open the box automatically with a remote from a distance (if you're too lazy to walk to the light)

Planning:

Week 3:

- Printing the cover of the box

Week 4:

- Making a design for the laser cutter

- Printing the box (went wrong)

- Making the light circuit (in photoshop)

Week 5:

- Printing the box (went wrong)

- Using the laser cutter to make the name board

Week 6 (vacation):

- Make the circuit with the light for the box

Week 7 (vacation):

-

Week 8:

- Printing the box
- Painting the box

- Printing the feet

- Add the name board, the eyes and the feet to the box

- Add the hinge to the box

Week 9:

- Turn the box in for grading

Step 1: Requirements

To build this minion light box you need a few materials and electronics.

Materials

- A led light

- A battery

- Two wires

- A hinge to open and close the box

- A wooden plank (it doesn't need to be very big, it's is for the minion his namecard. If you don't want a namecard on your box you don't need a wooden plank)

- See through paper

Electronics

- A 3D printer

- A laser cutter

- A glue gun --> I tried to put it all together with the glue gun but this didn't work. So I used kit instead, this worked really good!

- Scissors

Step 2: Make a Design for the 3D Printer

I made a design for the 3D printer with the program tinkercad. This is a free and easy program to make designs for the 3D printer. You just have to go to tinkercad.com and you have to create a new account.

The only thing you have to watch out for is that you have to make your design very precise. Because the printer prints your design like you made it in the program.

I made my minion box 6 by 6 cm. You could make you minion box bigger or smaller, just how you like it.

I also made a design for the feet and the eyes of the minion box. You could make the feet bigger or smaller, just as you like or you can use my design. You have to use my eyes for the minion unless you change the size of the box.

I am not going to print the eyes anymore because when I put the cover on the box the eyes can't fit. The cover and the box don't fit precisely, this can be beacause I printed them with different 3D printers. So now I'm going to leave them as gaps and put see through paper behind them.

Step 3: Printing!

In this step you are going to print your box. You have to do it in 2 parts. The cover and the box. In the previous step you can download these files en print them immediately. If you want a custom box, not the exact one as mine, you can design your own box with tinkercad (see previous step).

3D printers are sometimes a pain in the ass! I wanted to print the box but 3 out of 6 printers at my school were broken. The other 3 (who were not broken) were in use, so I couldn't print my box. I tried to print with one of the broke ones (I didn't know it was broken at first) then my print went wrong. The box let loose of the platform so it curled up (I think the platform wasn't hot enough). I had to stop the printing proces and now I have to try it another time again. Hopefully it will work then! In the images you can see the wrong printed box (a little piece of it because I had to stop it early).

I tried again to print the box with a 3D printer. Again it went wrong! This time at the beginning the printer printed very nice, the bottom of the box was very nice. Then the printer started with the walls, at first it went good. Then out of nowhere the printer started printing next to the box so the walls were printed wrong. The printer started to print walls next to the originals walls so I had to stop the printer again, unfortunately. So I have to try it again in a few weeks and hope that it will print right this time.

Finally the box is printed! I printed the box on another printer than the cover so the box looks a bit different than the cover. It is best that you print the cover and the box with the same printer, this looks the best. The box is not so strong because this printer was a whole other printer than the one I used for my cover, but there is no time to print another box.

Step 4: Making a Design for the Laser Cutter!

This step is not necesarry but this box I am making is for a school project and the requirements were that you have to use a 3D printer and a laser cutter. So I am going to make a name board for my minion box.

Before you can use the laser cutter you first have to make a design in adobe illustrator. My minion box get's a name board with the name Bob on it.

Step 5: Making a Circuit for the Light

It always comes in handy to make a circuit for the light, just to see how it will become. I made a circuit in photoshop so you all can see how it will be in the box.

Step 6: Using the Laser Cutter

This was the first time that I used the lasser cutter. It was explained to me how to use it, actually it's really easy to use it. It is a lot easier than I thought it to be. Making the name board was really fast, it only took a few minutes and it looks really cool!

Step 7: Painting (optional)

This is an optional step but I wanted to make the box look nice. Because this box is supposed to be a minion, the box has to be yellow. Minions are yellow! So I bought a spray paint in the color yellow (it doesn't have to be expensive). I bought this by the action, it's a shop where you can by all sort of things in the Netherlands. But I think you can buy spray paint in a lot of shops, it doesn't matter where you buy it.

There was a little complication, I printed the top and the bottom of the box with different printers so they look a little different. The top of the box got yellow very fast, the bottom of the box is still a little green unfortunately. This is why it's best to print both parts with the same printer.

Step 8: The See Through Paper!

Before the eyes and mouth of the minion I put little pieces of see through paper. This is the only part I used the glue gun, only for the paper it works!

I thought this was easy but it was a lot harder than I imagined to work with a glue gun. I didn't like it at all, the glue was everywhere. You had to be very fast, otherwise the glue was already dried again.

Step 9: Put It All Together!

In this step you are going to make your minion night light complete. This is the nicest part of the whole project I think, but also the part where everything can go wrong or some things don't work like you had in your mind. Luckily almost everything went as I had it in my mind. The only thing that went wrong was that I couldn't use the glue gun to stuck everything together, in stead of this I used kit.

At first I didn't like the minion because the bottom and the top were so different. When everything was put together it looked really nice, so I'm happy with this night light.

I have a few pictures and a little video for you guys so you can see how it all turned out!

Have fun making this minion yourself and I hope it will turn out great!