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  • Fizzgig

    I built Fizzgig and would like to share a few notes on my build (made in October 2025). I hope that this is helpful to anyone attempting to build it as well. I had a lot of fun building it!

    Speaker

    I tried using an external speaker connected with the headphone jack cable. It turned out that this speaker is not deactivated when no sound is played, and it produces very loud white noise (this happens with any speaker connected via this connection). Thankfully, the Adafruit support team reproduced this, and it seems that this behaviour cannot be resolved. So I went along with the oval mini speaker that is connected to the board via PicoBlade. To improve its sound a little, I attached the speaker to a Tic Tac box as a resonator, which worked quite well.

    Servo / Jaw

    I used lots of hot glue to attach all the hair, so the jaw became rather heavy. I attached some cardboard to the jaw to stabilise it, but this was not enough to support the weight. As a result, the jaw would not close properly. To resolve this, I stabilised the jaw with ice cream sticks. I also extended the servo horn with a piece of carbon tube. I could securely fix this to the servo horn using heat shrink tube with hot glue. My extended servo horn ends in a grommet made out of another piece of carbon tube with a larger diameter that I glued to the jaw. This makes the placement of the servo a lot easier and the connection more stable.

    I thought about also adding a spring taken out of a retractable pen to the servo horn extension to help the servo along. In my build, this was not possible to integrate, but there may be setups where adding a spring is possible and makes sense.

    Since I could not use a spring, I added a counterweight in the part where the servo horn ends. I glued in a screw and added two nuts for added weight. This helps the servo along.

    Code

    I used the UF2 file provided in the instruction. I would have liked to change the code to reduce the jaw opening angle (this would have enabled me to use a spring). Adafruit support pointed me to the code, and I was able to identify the place where the servo angles are defined. In my current Arduino IDE, the code would compile successfully, and the IDE even told me that the code had been successfully transferred to the board. However, CIRCUITPY was still visible as a drive after this supposedly successful transfer, and I had to re-upload the original UF2 file to go back to that version. I re-tried with several different methods, but I was not able to make the compiled code transfer to the board successfully. This may be due to my inability, since I am not very experienced using microcontrollers at all. If you are planning to alter the code, do check if it works for you before making your build.

    Wig

    It makes a lot of sense to buy a wig with really long hair. The instructions advise to cut off the hair along the longest section. I did this, but it would have made more sense to plan ahead to first check where the nose will go. Most hair under the nose will not be needed, as that's where the mouth goes. Depending what your particular wig looks like, it may be better to keep the long hair in the back and trim under the nose. 

    Also, the hair will be all over the place when you're done.

    I styled my Fizzgig's hair with transparent lacquer from a spray can. This was necessary especially around the eyes and the nose.

    Frame

    I built a wooden frame for my Fizzgig. I had originally used a cardboard box, but for more stability I replaced it with a wooden frame that basically had the same dimensions. My frame is about 31 x 18 x 10 cm. The required dimensions very much depend on the size of the wig and the length of the hair.

    Fizzgig with a red Arcade button