Mouse Radio (Sendung Mit Der Maus)

Hi, there I'm Niklas and in this instructable I will show you, how you can make a mouse radio from the German TV series "Die Sendung mit der Maus". Its an easy project and ideal as a present!

Materials:

• Radio-kit (Conrad)
• One board of multiplex or scrap wood
• small speaker
• little switch (if you don't want to remove the battery every time)
• 9V battery with a battery clip
• some flexible wire
• some black hard wire for the antenna and the whiskers

Tools:

• a scroll or hand saw
• a small drill
• a brown and orange wax crayon, a black sharpie, tippex
• universal and hot-glue
• a soldering iron and some solder

First you need to assemble the radio kit. It might be different from mine - just be sure, the two potentiometers stick out one side. Mine works reasonably well. The video documents the specific procedure of my version, but check your instruction if your model differs.

Next you need to cut out the main shape of the mouse using your scroll saw. Also cut out the ears. Use an online reference-image for it. The ears each need a small cavity, so the potentiometer-shaft can sit in it.

Now test the layout of the components (the speaker, circuit-board and battery) and mark their locations. Drill out 7 small holes where the speaker will go, so the sound can get out.

At this stage, you can paint the body of the mouse. Start with outlining the rough lines - painting them with the black sharpie afterwards. With the TippEx you can highlight the white part in the eyes. Paint the ears all brown.

If you want your mouse to stand up, you need to cut out some support now as described in the video.

Now you need to connect everything. Depending on your arrangement the cable lengths might be different:

1. Connect the speaker to the main PCB with a two-wire flexible cable. Solder one end to the pins of the speaker and the other end to the marked terminals on the PCB.
2. Connect the battery-pack to the PCB. Connect the black wire to the negative power input of the PCB. If you want to use a switch solder the red wire of the battery to the middle pin of the switch and use another wire to connect one of the outer pins of the switch to the positive power input. If you don't want to use such a switch simply solder the red wire of the battery directly to the positive power input.
3. Use a long piece of the black wire as the antenna. Solder it to the antenna input.

Test whether your connections are all done well and improve some solder-joints if necessary.

First glue the ears to the potentiometer-shafts, making sure, they can turn firmly when the PCB is in its place.

Now glue everything onto the Mouse-body:

1. First glue the PCB in place using a generous amount of hot glue
2. Then glue in place the speaker, using a bit hot-glue at the rim
3. Secure the antenna to the tail with several drops of hot-glue
4. Fix the switch to your desired spot with not to much hot-glue, that it obstructs the mechanics
5. Secure all the other wires to the body
6. Lastly add the support-feet

Now your mouse is almost done. Glue in some small curved segments of the black wire - they really make the mouse look original and cute.

My radio kit has a padder, that can adjust the frequency range. So turn the big frequency adjust potentiometer almost all the way to the lowest frequency. Now turn the padder to the position where you can here the radio station with the lowest frequency. This way you have the biggest usable tuning range.

Have fun with this building and make something creative - i would love to see your design! Have a good one!