LittleBits LazerTag Sensors

Who doesn't like Lazer Tag, right? .

In this Instructable we're going to show you how to use LittleBits and an Altoid tin to make a flashlight tag sensor that will buzz when someone "tags" you (by shining a flashlight on you). Now you'll know for sure when you've tagged someone and it's their turn to be it. We usually play this in the yard but have included a quick little video here that we shot in the house to show you how it works.

They are super fun to play with and after a couple holes are drilled a kid can build the whole thing on their own.

9 Volt Battery
Altoids Tin
Spraypaint (whatever color you want)
Flash Light
Cel Phone Arm Holder
Arm Band Cel Phone Holder (not pictured here)

LITTLEBITS
1 - Power Bit
1 - Light Trigger Bit
2 - Wire Bits
1 - Buzzer Bit

Connect your bits like we've shown here. They stick together with magnets so it's really easy. Be sure to have your Light Sensor Bit set on "light" mode so that it allows power to travel through when there is light shining on it. That way it will make the buzzer go off when you shine a flashlight on it.

Now it's time to drill a couple holes.

First use a 1/2 inch bit to drill a hole in the back of the tin. This will be the hole that revealed the light sensor. The center of the hole should be 3/4 inch from the left side of the tin and 1 1/4 inch from the top of the tin.

Next you'll want to drill some holes to allow for sound from the buzzer to escape the tin so that people hitting it with their flashlight from far away can still hear it go off. These can be with any small drill bit - we used a 1/16th inch bit. By using an awl to start each hole you can make the drilling a bit easier and more safe. It keeps the bit from moving around while you're trying to keep it steady on the corner of the tin.

This part is pretty simple - just sand the whole tin to roughen it up so that the paint will stick and line the inside of the tin with tape to keep it clean so that your LittleBits don't get dirty. Then you can spray it with whatever color you'd like. We did two different colors on 2 tins to make a set with some orange and white that we had in the shop.

Two very important notes:

1 - The LittleBits and battery fit perfectly into the tin but you have to get things just right in order to actually get the lid to close and the sensor to line up. Don't force it if the lid doesn't close as you could hurt the LittleBits. You may have to mess around a bit with getting all the wires pushed down into place but once things are in their right places the lid will close easily.

2 - the LittleBits Power Bit has a small red light that turns on whenever you have the power turned on. This will set off our light sensor which is bad because we want our flashlights to do that. So you need to cover the light with something so that it doesn't set off your sensor from the inside. We've used a small bit of sticky tack to cover ours in this tutorial but we've used electrical tape before as well and it worked just fine.

By cutting up some old vinyl stickers we made a couple lightning bolt graphics that added a little street creed to our new sensors.

All that's left is to insert each sensor into an arm band cel phone holder, grab a flashlight and get out in the yard.

Have fun - thanks for reading.