The low tech magic behind Barrel of Makers’ adorable red-nosed reindeer

Last week, Barrel of Makers hosted a workshop at 1313 Innovation to make red-nosed reindeer (Rudolph, obv) and in classic BoM fashion, electronics were involved.
Attendees used felt to create the reindeer and sewed them together with a needle and thread to create a soft exterior. The nose was three parts: LED bulb, a regular battery and a wire. These are not high-tech ingredients but supplies anyone can really use to create cool stuff.

“We used regular batteries. You had to solder first, so we taught people how to solder. Then you build the soft stuff around that, you make a ball of wool around the wire. … We did wrap the LED in electrical tape to prevent the circuit from being shorted out,” explained Barrel of Maker’s organizer Jessica Taylor.
This was a deviation from last year’s “blushing penguins” workshop. According to Taylor, it was hard to get both bulbs to align symmetrically. “It was a lot harder to get the two pink lights to be exactly even and the same depth into the fuzzy wool,” she explained. Hence the switch to reindeer.
Her favorite part about these workshops? The newbies, the first timers. “You don’t need to be an artist or know how to solder, you just need to have an open mind and the will to try it out,” said Taylor.