the IR Blaster is the trigger that causes each of the other creations to come to life. The design will be fairly simple. An arduino nano, powered by batteries, will be connected to a button and an IR LED. When the button is pressed, the IR LED sends a coded signal. The coded signal ensures that the other creations won't trigger accidentally and matches the signal sent by my TV remote when I press the power button. This will make testing the other creations easier. 

Coding was very simple and made heavy use of the simplesender sample sketch from the arduino IRRemote library. I just changed the address and command values to match my remote, and modified the loop to send when the button pulls pin 7 low, then delay for 100ms to avoid double sending too quickly. 

The test version is complete and working flawlessly. Future work will involve creating the final version. This uses an arduino nano because it is the narrowest arduino derivative I could find, and I already happen to have several. The final version will be wired without headers to allow the smallest form factor. Everything will be packaged inside a wooden rod that will be hollowed out and tapered. The IR LED will sit at the top of the wand. Fabricating the wand will be a later task.