Last Saturday I taught a class called "Blinky Bugs" to a group of 9-12 year olds. The class was three hours long with a 15 minute break, and a 10 minute clean up. "Blinky Bugs" are small basic circuits made out of a guitar string, a button battery, and two LEDs. Then you add detail to your circuit to make it look more buggy. When it's all made, the guitar strings move around in the wind, touching up against the LED arms,completing the circuit, and lighting up the LEDs! The orginal "Blinky Bug" comes from the creator Ken Murphy. You can find out more about him by looking at the Make Faire podcast on You Tube. In the original Blinky Bug design, you have to solder all the parts together. I wanted to avoid the soldering, and cut the cost of the button battery holders, so I made up a design without those components.

The materials needed for one blinky bug are: One guitar string (a thin one, doesn't matter what kind), two LEDs any color, one 1.5v button battery, electrical tape, low temperature hot glue gun, needle nose pliers, Sharpie marker, 1"x1"x1" piece of styrofoam, or Wonder Foam one inch shapes, medium gadge wire, pipe cleaners, feathers, and any kind of small recycled objects that could be used as a nose, or eyes, or hair. First, you start by figuring out how the LEDs work on the button battery by making the LED saddle the side of the battery. If it doesn't turn on, turn the LED around. That should give you the color. Take a Sharpie and mark the LED leg that's on the positive side of the battery. Do the same to the other LED. Then, make the LEDs do the splits so they look like a T. Take the unmarked legs of the LEDs and curl them into a 1/4" wide circle with your needle nose pliers. Bend the circles so they face the same side as the face of the LEDs. Take a 1" piece of electrical tape,and tape down the positive legs of both LEDs. Second, take the guitar string, and bend it into a V. Place the bended part of the V on the negative side of the button battery, then tape that down with a 1" piece of electrical tape. Next, if you have your LED leg circles right, you should be able to poke in one end of the guitar string in one leg, and other end of the guitar string in the other leg. You should notice the LEDs going off right away. GOOD! Tape up the taped parts again, just to make sure everything stays in place. Then, get your glue gun ready and the piece of foam. Put a generous dab of hot glue on the foam, and press that onto the positive side of the battery. Let that cool.

 Once that is done, you're ready to add legs, wings, anything! To add legs, get out the medium gadge wire, cut off two pieces 3" each, then poke them all the way through the foam till equal amounts of leg are on either side. Bend the legs so the bug stands up, and the guitar strings don't touch the ground. Then hot glue those legs in place. From here, you can add feathers, beads, and pipe cleaners, in order to customize your bug. Hint: It's easy to poke things into the foam, then glue them into place. When you are finally done with gluing, tend to the guitar strings/antennae of your bug. Move the LED circles around so that the guitar strings are hovering near the circle edge, but not touching. That way the LEDs won't go off when they're not disturbed. You might need to help the guitar strings catch air. You can do this by adding a flag of clear tape on the tips. When all is done, the bugs should blink when the guitar strings catch air, or are bumped. When not disturbed the bug's LEDs will remain off. That's it! Hope you enjoy your Blinky Bug! The only drawback to not soldering is that you can't replace the button battery without tearing up the bug. But I'm working on that. . .