How Polymer Hero Transition works

First off I'm having a tough time understanding the fundamentals of the hero-transition within Polymer. I am attempting to build a hero transition card like the one in the example provided by them, which can be found here. Below I've built the mini card and I'm just trying to understand the transition and how the larger card works with the smaller one.

My specific question is, how does the transition bind to each element? Do I need to complete the CSS for both before I can begin playing with the core-animated-pages? Does having an embedded template matter?

Any guidance would be extremely helpful.

<script src="../components/webcomponentsjs/webcomponents.js"></script>
<link rel="import" href="../components/core-animated-pages/core-animated-pages.html">
<link rel="import" href="../components/core-animated-pages/transitions/hero-transition.html">
<link rel="import" href="../components/paper-button/paper-button.html">
<link rel="import" href="../components/core-image/core-image.html">
<link rel="import" href="../components/paper-shadow/paper-shadow.html">
<polymer-element name="chip-card">
    <template>
        <style>
            #page2 {
                width: 100%;
                height: 100%;
            }
            #paper_shadow {
                position: relative;
                display: inline-block;
                font-family:'Roboto', sans-serif;
                font-size: 12px;
                color: white;
            }
            #chip_body {
                height: 400px;
                width: 300px;
                background-color: aqua;
                color: black;
            }
            #chip_top {
                background-color: deeppink;
                background-image: url();
                background-size: cover;
                background-position: center center;
                width: 100%;
                position: relative;
            }
            #chip_bottom {
                background-color: #fbfbfb;
                width: 100%;
                height: 20%;
                position: relative;
                font-size: 1.2em;
                word-wrap: break-word;
            }
            #text {
                padding-left: 5%;
                padding-right: 2.5%;
                overflow: hidden;
            }
            #coreImage {
                display: block;
            }
            #card_container {
                width: 70%;
                height: 600px;
                background-color: aqua;
                color: black;
            }
            #card_right {
                height: 100%;
                width: 30%;
            }
            #card_left {
                background-color: darkblue;
                height: 100%;
                width;
                70%;
            }
            #card_left_top {
                padding-right: 20px;
                padding-top: 20px;
                background-color: skyblue;
            }
            #circle {
                width: 30px;
                height: 30px;
                border-radius: 50%;
                background-color: red;
            }
            #header_text {
            }
            #card_content {
                width:100%;
                background-color: lightcoral;
            }
        </style>
        <core-animated-pages transitions="hero-transition" selected={{page}}>
            <section>
                <paper-shadow z="1" id='paper_shadow' on-mouseover="{{raise}}" on-mouseout="{{lower}}" animated=true; hero-p="" on-tap="{{transition}}">
                    <div id="chip_body" hero-id="chip_body" vertical layout center justified>
                        <div id="chip_top" flex>
                            <div id="coreImage">
                                <content select="#core-image"></content>
                            </div>
                        </div>
                        <div id="chip_bottom" vertical layout start-justified>
                            <div id='text'>
                                <content select="#chip_bottom"></content>
                            </div>
                        </div>
                    </div>
                </paper-shadow>
            </section>
            <section id="page2">
                <div id="card_container" hero-id="chip_body" on-tap="{{transition}}" hero=""></div>
            </section>
        </core-animated-pages>
    </template>
    <script>
        Polymer('chip-card', {
            page: 0,

            raise: function() {
                this.$.paper_shadow.setZ(2);
            },
            lower: function() {
                this.$.paper_shadow.setZ(1);
            },
            transition: function(e) {
                if (this.page === 0) {
                    this.$.paper_shadow = e.currentTarget;
                    this.page = 1;
                } else {
                    this.page = 0;
                }
            }

        });
    </script>
</polymer-element>