BMO!

The bestest Halloween costume ever

Who is B-Mo?

B-MO (phonetically spelled "Beemo") is the best character on the TV show Adventure Time. BMO is a living prototype video game console system, portable electrical outlet, computer, music player, VCR, video player, video editor, roommate, camera, alarm clock, toaster, flashlight, strobe light, skateboarder, soccer player, tape player, chef, detective and friend who is owned by Finn.

Wha? Why did you make a B-Mo?

As I said, B-MO is the best character on Adventure Time. He's lovable and goofy, and everyone wants their own B-Mo. I merely found an excuse to make one: a work Halloween party, at the design firm I worked at where coworkers are known to go all out for the occasion.

Oh cool! How did you make them?!

Getting to that!

Wait, so what was the costume?

Our friends and us went as Jake, Finn, Princess Bubblegum, and Marceline the Vampire Queen. But that's not that important, because I didn't take many pictures and because B-Mo was the coolest part!

Well, OK. I played the part of Princess Bubblegum. She's ruler of the Candy Kingdom, and a brilliant scientist, but her creations sometimes go awry, and she needs the help of Finn and Jake (the main characters) to help her save the Kingdom. Sound familiar? Nah, my stuff never goes wrong. Anyway.

My partner and I had also been brainstorming other good costume ideas. It was between Ice Climbers from Mario, and Adventure Time characters. As soon as I said "WE COULD MAKE A B-MO!" we were sold. This is October 1. ONE MONTH to party time.

Figuring out how to make a B-Mo

It took me a bit of brainstorming to figure out how to make B-Mo. I also wanted to surprise my coworkers, so I conducted my activities mostly in secret.

I started off with the Fandom page where there was a few ideas. They started with "BMO looks like a Macintosh computer with Game Boy Color buttons and Atari 2600 controllers. He also shares some traits with a Vectrex." Hmm. Macintosh. Keep in mind, this was before I worked at Apple. But, looking back, seems like a natural fit.

Based on my photo history, I started figuring out the costume details on 10/1.

Some challenges I had to contend with considering the Macintosh form factor:
How was I going to load software on an old Mac? Wasn't it going to weigh a million pounds/how do I make this into a costume? What features can I use? I don't fully remember the order of operations I went in, but I'm also someone who sometimes needs to just get started with something and figure it out along the way.

I also considered making a completely custom housing. As a designer, I do usually like complete control, since I can create custom mounting points for screens, add ons, and a Raspberry Pi to have complete operational control over the device. The challenge was cost, and if I was to use something like foam to save cost, I might struggle with structural integrity. I considered that a back up plan, and decided to take a chance on the Mac. I mean, it would become one of the coolest Macs out there, so at least there's taht.

I perused eBay and found a non-functional Apple Macintosh Classic Computer Mac 1990 M0420 for $55 including shipping. What did I have to lose?

I ordered 10/8, arrived 10/16. Because I only had two weeks from the arrival date, had to do some prep in advance.

While the Mac was on order...

I started planning out how I wanted to build all of BMO's features. Using Solidworks and a roughly-accurate model of a Macintosh SE, I started planning out some of the finishes to see if this would really look like a BMO. Honestly, proved to myself it wouldn't be so bad!

I started planning out the decals and scaling his buttons and decorations so they'd look good. I planned to use a laser cutter with foam for those, since I had one on hand.

I also ordered the other parts of my costume at this time! This isn't me on the left, but I took a lot of inspiration from this costume. That is me practicing my pink make up on the right.

Once the Mac arrived, we were in business.

Taking the old Mac apart was an intimidating task. I noticed immediately that the curved CRT screen was going to be a bit at odds with the flat panel displays of this era. I implored some coworkers to help supervise the discharging of the capacitors, in case I went into cardiac arrest. Luckily, there was not even a spark and I took it apart without issue. However, if you're trying to repeat this, make sure you look up instructions on discharging the caps.

Curved CRT screens

Down to the core components of the BMO

Without the CRT and hardware, the weight was stripped down tremendously. I did a bit of aggressive clean up to get rid of all the gunk and corrosion.

Decals and paint

A happy BMO! I very carefully removed the rainbow Apple logo while painting so it could stay rainbow colored and be reinstalled on the final thing. The small details count! At this time, this was just an image I downloaded and modified to show proportions. No animations or interactions yet.

I had to Dremel out the side because the iPad was a liiiiiitle too big. But, the Mac bezel completely obscured the iPad bezel (they had those back then, along with a home button) AND allowed access for the charging port so I didn't have to take BMO apart all the time. Big win! The curved CRT bezel did leave a gap with the flat iPad, but it actually allowed me to get my fingers in there to operate the home button when needed.

Lightning port access hole, and a hole for BMO's arms, which I had decided I was going to crochet.

The hardware lady GOT TO WORK. Crocheted those legs!

Laser cutting tricks for good spacing

Painted, laser-cut foam buttons

A few notes:
I used leftover teal yarn my cousin had gifted me (no longer wanted)::) that was close enough to the right color. I adapted the pattern from a teddy bear, and kind of ended up with my own thing. I left the strings on at the end so I could tie them off within BMO's housing. I'm thankful I did that, and it ended up being a pretty robust attachment method.

I realized I had no way to carry BMO at this party, and started thinking about making him into a backpack. This turned out to be an fantastic idea. I found some mounting hardware in the shop and took some straps (that happened to be a wonderful, Princess Bubblegum Pink) from some cat carriers (I never used those straps).

BMO seems to like his legs.

What does Stirling the cat think?

BMO's insides are VERY advanced. Well, besides the iPad, he's mostly boxes for filler. Tied on the legs and arms.

So limber! A little trial and error needed to get the iPad to stay in place, but I think a majority of it is an interference fit with a few supporting clips and shims to keep it centered. It's backed by boxes and junk. Reduce, reuse, recycle.

A few coats of paint for the back, now that all the drilling is done...

Decals and decorations back on. Hardware is in business!

Made some more props for friends - Finn's sword

Software

The basic principle behind how we were able to create an interactive B-MO without local software was: 1. Avoid the Apple App Store, and run a progressive web app full screen (instructions below). 2. Host the web app on our home server 3. In case we don't think we want to connect the iPad to wi-fi directly, use a phone as a tether.

Installing a PWA is super easy on iOS.

UI

I had a fairly exhaustive list of ideas for B-MO interactions. I ranked experiences from most critical to "nice to have," and worked with Mike to figure out which we could do. I prioritized: dynamic facial expressions (move around so he looks active and engaged), switching facial expressions (blinking), and audio upon touch. If you touch B-Mo's eye, he winces and looks angry. If you poke his face, he looks happy, and says one of several expressions to you, like "Yay, B-Mo is so pretty and smart!"

Although my B-MO was built very differently than the BYO BMO folks, the images for B-MO's faces were invaluable. Because I wanted to be able to move B-Mo's face around, I traced the features in Illustrator and created transparent images - I ended up with a folder of BMO-[EMOTION]-[BODYPART] images and provided those to my software counterpart, Mike.

iPad Home Screen up on the BMO screen. Isn't it weird to see an old Mac with a modern Home Screen?

It took some time to get the facial features right. My programmer does not have the best aesthetic sense, so it requires a bit of a feedback loop to get proportions correct. He got the audio down pretty easy, though!

Some early QA. What happened to his eyes?!

Prior to the main event, Mike took him to work for his office Halloween costume contest (they were utterly wooed by B-Mo, and we worked out a few bugs before the party).