I decided to try my hand at animatronics and make the Trilobite into a bubble-blowing robot. It was a lot of fun because I had never tried to "move air" before so I learned how air blowers work and made my own out of cardboard. I also used a servo motor to make his mouth open and close so that he could literally "blow" the bubbles!

Going through this process has inspired me to make more stuffed animals and puppets which is something I loved as a kid. I hope you will try to make one! It could be a great addition to a kid's birthday party where you could modify the project to showcase their favorite plush or fictional character. :)

You can watch the whole process here:

Maker Quest Items:

• Trilobite Plush
• Bubble Blowing Wand with Bubbles
• Tongs with Hands

Additional Craft Materials:

• Cardboard
• A Circular Metal Tin (mine was old, used to hold buttons) or another similar cylindrical container
• The spool from empty wire
• Red Felt
• Clear Tubing
• A small piece of Craft Foam
• Aluminum Foil Tape
• Super Glue
• Floral Wire (for inside the whiskers)
• Armature Wire
• A Small Dowel

Electronics:

• A Toy Motor & Motor Heads (I got this set of many to choose from)
• A Servo Motor & Motor Head - I used a Geek Servo with a Technic Lego Arm
• An Arduino that can run a Servo - I used an Adafruit Feather because that's what I had on hand, but that was overkill for the simple opening and closing of a mouth. A Nano or Trinket would be cheaper and work fine too. :)

Tools:

• X-Acto knife and straight edge to cut the cardboard
• Scissors
• Seam-Ripper
• Needle & Thread to match the purple Trilobite and the red felt