Assemble Owl

by Becky Stern
Try out your circuit on battery power by plugging it into GEMMA's JST port.

Tape up the battery to protect it and protect the wire connections.
Start making the owl according to the paper instructions included in the box.

Cut a slit up the back body piece to make a path for the speaker wires.

Arrange your circuit as shown.
Begin stuffing the body, then insert the speaker just behind the front of the body.

Bend the wires so they route straight out the back of the owl body, at the top of the slit you made in the last step.

Continue and finish stuffing the owl. Plug in the battery to test out the loudness of your circuit. If it's not as loud as you like, make sure the speaker is flush up against the front of the body and not insulated by any stuffing.

Unplug the battery to finish constructing the owl.
Stitch up the slit and bottom of the owl and continue making the owl as per the paper instructions.

Because the GEMMA sits inside the tail of the owl, we needed to cut an additional tail piece from the brown felt included in the owl kit, then sewed it to the original tail piece to make a pocket.

The battery sits inside the cape of the owl, and GEMMA's JST port conveniently faces the opening for convenient disconnection. When the battery runs down you will need to disconnect and remove the battery, and charge it using the MicroLipo charger. (Lithium batteries are not made to be recharged while inside the owl, as the battery may get hot. So that's why you need to remove to recharge). Also the GEMMA v1, v2 and M0 do not support recharging Lithium cells. 

Because the wires enter the tail, this mod has an added advantage of allowing the stiffened tail to stabilize the toy when it stands!
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This guide was first published on Mar 11, 2014. It was last updated on Mar 11, 2014. This page (Assemble Owl) was last updated on Sep 05, 2019.