Bad weather, long afternoons, soft illnesses, all of these can be a reason for your child and you to get bored. There are plenty of toys or even busy (or activity) boards that you can grab in a store. But why not to make one by yourself?
For this project, I used materials from my toolbox, debris, and some electronic components:
- 🔫 Drill
- ▲ Step drills to plastics
- 🪛 Screwdriver
- 🔩 Wood screws
- ⚡ Electric Soldering Iron
- ➿ Soldering wire
- 🪵 Wood board (residue from Ikea furniture)
- 📦 Wiring box
- 📏 Sanitary pipe
- 🔽 MP1584EN Step-down Voltage module |
- 🕹️ Switch |
- 🔋 Battery box |
- 〰️ Wires |
- 💡 LED Diode |
- 🗜️ LED Holder Socket |
- 💡 Soft LED Filament |
- Ω Metal Resistor |
- 🔘 Push Button |
The first step was to grab all the stuff and make a plan. I wanted to have a board with some activities and lights. I wanted to have a switch to turn on/off the lights and a button because it reduces the risk that lights will be turned on all the time.
Most work will involve lights and wiring. I used a battery box to power the lights. I also used a switch to turn on/off the single Blue LED and two buttons to turn on the lights on each side.
Connect the LED to the breadboard (which provides a 3V power source) and put it on the board to see what it looks like. (Those transparent plastic things are from the packaging of the pacifier - they are perfect for this purpose)
In the following step, I added a Wiring box and put 🟦 LED to the middle of it (let's call it nose). Put 🟥 and 🟨 LED Filaments as eyes to the sides - it looks much better.
The next step was to create holes for buttons, switch to the Wiring box, and place batteries inside the Wiring box. I used a step drill to make a hole - it’s plastic, so it was easy. Grab a heat gun to catch the battery box inside the Wiring box.
💔 You can see that 🟦 LED does not fit the LED holder - because the holder is for 3mm LEDs, but I have a 5mm one. Never mind…
The inside of the wiring box is a bit messy, but it functions well 🙃:
- The battery box is connected to a step-down voltage regulator.
- The negative output of the regulator connects to a resistor.
- Each LED branch with a button (or switch) connects to the positive terminal of the regulator and to the resistor in parallel.
- Fix the holder for the LED - use 5mm LED holder for 5mm LED 🙃
- Add Zpiper to the board - customer seems to like it 😈
- Create basic structure
- Make the lights work
- Add LEDs and buttons to the breadboard
- Add power source
- Solder all the stuff
- Fix holder for LED
- Add More Activities
- Old watches
- Zipper
- Magnetically controlled LEDs
- Rotating wheel
Libor Váchal - LinkedIn
Valuable links and things worth mentioning.
- Laskakit.cz - 🇨🇿 Czech e-shop with electronics (3 days delivery max)
- Dratek.cz - 🇨🇿 Czech e-shop with electronics (3 days delivery max)
- Aliexpress - 🇨🇳 Chinese shop with everything (1-week delivery min if you are lucky)
- Tinkercard - Online circuit simulator