This is a lighted base for the Makerbot/curriculum T-Rex skull : http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:308335

The lights are Adafruit neoPixles : http://www.adafruit.com/product/1612

Housed in my neoPixel balls : http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:999732

In the base is a chamber set up to mount an Adafruit proTinket processor to run the lights : http://www.adafruit.com/product/2000

Since the lights are mounted in balls and the processor controls the color & brightness, you can program this to do most anything you could dream up. Do a color crossfade, respond to sensors, what have you.

The base is set up to be printed 15% 2 shells with no support on a Replicator 2. Inside the processor box, the print will end up with some pylons that you will clip off using flat faced wire cutters.

We used these : http://www.adafruit.com/product/152

And they worked really well. Yes, I go on about Adafruit. I like their stuff a lot and I want them to succeed.

You will need 3 little screws to attach the processor : https://www.boltdepot.com/Product-Details.aspx?product=6358

Those are the ones we use.

Print the skull, jaw & post from http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:308335

Print the base from here and enough ball bits to make up 4 balls.

Print the base itself.

Solder the power, ground, data-in and data-out onto each neoPixel. See that thing for more info. Basically wires close to middle and the solder joints at the middle of the pads. You want the wires on the smallest circle you can make.

Test the LEDs then mount them in the balls. (We used zap glue)

Once the base is printed and cleaned up you can install the processor with the three 2mm screws.

Now get comfortable and wire everything up. 5V to LED power, G to LED ground. Pick a data pin for the data and dasy chain it through all the LEDs.

Code it and test!