Susie Robot Helmet from Kirby Games with Programmable Arudino and Neopixels

This headband/helmet was made for an elementary school aged child. It should be able to be scaled up to adult sizes pretty easily as only really the headband should need to be changed.

 

To build this costume piece you will need the following supplies

• Seeduino xiao (or equivalent)
• Two Addressable LED strips of 3 LEDs (Neopixel or other is fine, I used these)
• Four M3x4x5 heatset inserts
• Four M3 x 10mm socket head screws
• One momentary button (Something like these)
• Some wire (I suggest some single wires for inside the ear cups and then a 4 wire ribbon for across the headband
• USB-C extension
• Portable battery pack
• Adhesive felt (optional, but suggested)
• Superglue or hot glue
• Heat shrink tubing
• White filament of choice for headband and ear pieces (I used white PETG)
• Translucent or semi-translucent white filament for LED diffuser (I used Printed Solid Jessie Quarter White)
• Yellow filament of choice for button and earpiece covers (I used Colorfabb Melon Yellow)

Print Settings

Print in the orientation the parts load with whatever print settings you want. If you don't paint the main ear pieces it is possible that light will bleed through the white plastic. A cubic infill actually looks pretty cool when that happens so I would suggest that. The yellow ear cup covers will need support but that part ends up on the inside so you won't ever see the surface.

Assembly

Insert the heatset inserts into the holes in the ear pieces using a soldering iron. You want them to be flush or just a tiny bit under the surface, they should not be sticking out.

Cut your wires to length. You will need 3 wires from each wear cup that can go up to the LED strips at the top (power, ground, and signal). You will need 4 wires that can run from one ear piece to the other across the length of the headband. You will need three short wires for the momentary button.

Solder the three wires to the LED strips for each side, make sure you are connecting power, ground, and signal to the correct pads.

Run the LED wires from the top of the ear pieces down into the hollow and stick the LEDs to the top. You could glue on the diffusers now but I suggest waiting until everything is working.

Solder the wires to the button (power, ground, button signal) and super glue the button extension to the end. Fit the button inside the right ear piece and once the printed part is sticking out the back and can be pressed to click the button then hot glue it in place on the inside of the ear piece.

Connect all the ground wires together, solder them up and heatshrink them. These end up all running to the  ground pin on the seeduino. You can either solder the wires directly to the seeduino or you can use dupont pins as there is just enough clearance for them.

Connect all the power wires together, solder them up and heatshrink them. These will all end up connecting to the seeduino 3.3v pin.

Connect the button signal wire to the seeduino pin 8

Connect the left LED signal wire to seeduino pin 9

Connect the right LED signal wire to seeduino pin 10

Flash the included code to the seeduino through the Arduino IDE from your computer

Disconnect the seeduino from the computer and connect to the power bank. On boot the LEDs should be solid pink. Clicking the button (it takes a second of holding it and then release to trigger) the animation should change. There are solid pink, water, fire, wind, electric, ice, and off animations which you can switch between.

If everything is working then screw the headband to the earpieces with the M3 screws and cover the inside of the headband with the adhesive felt. Super glue on the diffusers to the top of the earpieces. Pack all your wires into the ear pieces and press fit the yellow covers. I don't suggest gluing these incase you need to get access to the electronics again.

I don't have a wiring diagram as I made this a year ago and I don't want to tear it apart to get photos. If anyone makes one and wants me to include it (with appropriate credit) let me know.