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Making Minibots: Bristlebot

All right, you guys, you ready to make our next but this one thiss one is much smaller but it's really cool. It works on the same principle of of a motor that has unbalanced weight on it that gives us that that wobbly vibration that causes something to scoot along so the heart of this project is achieved back is well, I would say it could be the toothbrush, but it could also be this kid can can anybody tell me where this is commonly found it's a motor of some kind? It can be commonly found in your pocket. It was such a toy cars will toy cars do use do use motors. But this is a specific kind of motor. Take a look at the roader and you'll see that it kind of has that that built in nut that we duct taped to the spindle it's built on there. I'll tell you when this motor spins and spins very fast and it goes kind of, uh maybe electric shaver that that's a, uh the the size of the devices close alarm schools like this when you turn the ringer off it's, this is a cell phone vibrator all yours.

Every cell phone told us it could be found in your pocket. You're right, it could be found in your pocket so you can get these very inexpensively online a dollar less each I think if you go to ebay you'll find them for ah really bargain price and so they end up being great little motors for for bought projects for vibrating bought projects. And so what we need for this project is this little cell phone vibration motor and shoes that's right? And what what we what we need to look for in a toothbrush that we use for this project jane the's yeah, but what about them, uh divide how thie bristles yeah should be as even as possible a lot of toothbrushes now have bristles. They go up and down and different angle so that they can get around your teeth. You don't really want that for your for your bristol about what you want are are bristles that are completely smooth and even like a flat plane get this. Okay, so that when you set it down you feel that is pretty stable on there and then we have. So I said the coin cell battery and also some of this foam tape that is double sided sticky tape so that you can uh, easily attached the motor to the uh attach the motor to the to the toothbrush so the first step is to clip off thea the top of the toothbrush from the rest of the toothbrush and you can use your wire snipers to do that can I go first? Sure. And so you can get it that you can just basically cut the narrow part off said that you have just the broad broad part left so cut it right about there these are sharp is pretty easy to d'oh okay? Oh yeah it's interesting. Ok, the next thing we want to do is we don't need we don't need all of this wire on here. This is way too much wire. What we want to do is cut it off so we just have about I would say two inches so you just use the cutting and of your clippers to clip those wires so that you just have a couple of wires like that. And so okay, once you're done with that, this uh this is gonna be a little tricky because we don't have thea strippers don't go down all the way for this kind of gauge wire but used the smallest one and if you turn it in an angle and just kind of work at it, you should be able to strip off that insulation and try to get like, about a half injure so the insulation and you might have tio what I did was I kind of just worked at it and weaken the insulation using this stripper and then just pulled the rest of the insulation off with my off with my fingernail the tricky part about it is you guys have trouble with it let me know and I'll go right to come over there and we're kind of I'm going I'm going to show you what but it should look like about like that they'll even further even if you have more stripped off it's fine okay okay let's see yeah that's ok we still have enough here to work on let me see if I can get this because uh yeah it's it's hard to do with the wrong kind of cutter here the mark of you ever she cut off too much and it's then is there anything is there any way back once cut off to it depends if you have a number left you can you can sauder okay you khun sauder it back together but there could be a point where you if you just get to the very bottom this is a bit we've actually careful yeah exactly that that's a good point. How are you guys doing over here great it's going to feel so okay that's okay, we I think we have another one here. So, uh let me, uh let me just strip this off here and I will hopefully I won't pull it off either. It's uh it's not easy to find wire strippers that have the ability to strip wires that are this small that tiny you can get wire strippers where you just kind of eyeball. It says there was a good to have, and I have a pair of those at home in los angeles. I wish I hadn't. Now we'll get this. Okay, ok, since we've been mangling these wires a little bit let's sure, if we've been since we've been mangling this wise let's, just make sure that they still work. So with your coin battery, if you have a piece of insulation on your battery little plastic label, go ahead and peel that off with all the stuff we don't need. I made something that we don't excellent jane. And then just make sure that the battery that it runs by touching the bare wires against either side of this coin better and you can see this one is indeed working. Just make sure that you that it works like that. Also, you sandpaper to take the insulation off eyes. You try that that's a cool idea. I actually had an idea of actually back on the draw. Bob kala gators joining us from san francisco on those same, maybe velcro instead of the duct tape. And then you can adjust the pens quite easily that's such a good idea on a call with that's really cruel velcro strips. Whose idea was that that's from hq alligator who's right here in san francisco kala gator alligator is a regular with us cool thank you killing it a really great guy that's really great thank you very much it's a cool idea I'm going to swipe that so how is it going ok does that working you look good works it still works okay on dh chance and dan it's working okay good okay great okay jane so now what we will do next is let's take the double sticky tape and cut off a section that is as long as the base of your toothbrush you can have for years and so cave it's a little too long or short it doesn't need to be exact and just about attach it to your toothbrush top I was on the colbert report a few years ago on a head up bill robot that was similar to this and uh I was showing it tio on the show the stephen colbert and it was flying around the table and all of a sudden it just got a mind of its own and just shot off like about five feet in here and just hit the ground and just blew into a million different pieces it was completely unplanned but it was like the best part of the e I think so absolutely okay so I just trim this the size ofthe there for so that it would look nice so really there's there's not a lot more to do what you want to do is uh he's set the motor down so that one of the wires is against the sticky tape I'm going tio thiss camera get of another side another motor a sorry jane I don't and then and take the end that's that's bigger and flatter than the positive side and push it against on the sticky tape so that it's over the metal part of the wire but not on the insulation and then just press it down really good with your finger so it's just stuck on there like that that one might be overhanging a little too much we'll see what we're going to do with mine and then for the other one escaped a piece of our favorite material the duct tape we'll work on something jane I'll show you keep them together. Yeah, but let's work on this one first on get a little piece of duct tape it just needs to be a little square like about a half inch square so like this is everybody keeping up pretty well it with a stage do I need to wait or any questions or anything although we have the tape it's okay, okay jane all with you through this part and then just take that tape, put it over the wire and then when you're ready for the thing to go you just stick it onto the top of the coin battery and push on to it really well and then just set it on and there it goes so you can see it just it has a mind of its own. If it's unstable and tips over, then you might want to adjust the components a little bit, and so there's a lot of things you can do with these. Once you get them built, you can, like, take them out on to your driveway, or if you have a large piece of paper or bored or table, draw big circle, put your draw bots in the center and have a contest to see whose stays in the longest or comes out first. Um, another thing I was thinking as you, you could try attaching a pin to the side of one of these and seeing what kind of what kind of trail and draws looking even works upside down, too. Okay, putting to brush well, cool, dad, so stay outside of those lines very close with shiny paper, it spins and spins on the slightly running social tends to go off in different directions, things because way. Well, I want to come and take a look and see how you guys are doing, so you get a card and guide it along. Yeah that's a great idea you could time it we'll see how long it takes me to view this you're doing it you really jail check it out they made a race track being year's over some high banked turns there so that's a good idea how are you guys dealing with years used so I like where you oriented it at a different angle like that makes it spin that's really cool like this you're being considered project last weekend they kept shifting the center of gravity around to see how it responding and didn't have moved in different ways that's cool okay great genius now we never did the bristles in right that's cool I have not but I have heard that people have tried that already create create involved that's such a cool idea yeah that is I think I've seen people were they yeah they have actually dip them in pain and then different ones for different paint yeah that's a great idea that then you really will get the jackson policies yeah it's definitely yeah how did that work jane it's not sticking on because there's okay well first really hard accounts making race troubles are you doing here chance you you're making a crawl just make a little simple race for believing keep him in line were helpful you guys have made a great racetrack over there how's that working use that straight down the line it was catchy and talking I think that my oh, that's a graphic, kevin, just a really great idea doing crystal ball. Okay. That's cruel it's. Like, very heavy with making the golden beaches. Yeah, like, you know, I think people do this with very large brushes, too. And so you can use a larger brush with the motor like this one. A scrubbing brush? Yeah, e just a touch a larger motor to it. So again, like all the other projects that were we've been doing in these segments, this is just the beginning. I mean, think of this as how else kind of use the motor like this, teo teo, create art to make a cool vehicle to add interactivity to a project. And then still, I think that's a cool idea, and we might be able to even give that a try right now, I need it cut a war struggle, but why don't you just use this one? Does that one just someone stable like that? Coming from online? Lisa lisa suggesting happen putting a lego min effect many figure on top of that that's a cool idea that we're writing on top and sam was just asking, could you just mention again where they confined the motors? Yeah, amazon is where I purchased them before you can get them also at on ebay and expensively maker shed there's a lot of different sites just it's just a component comes with a regular cell phone yeah, I would just I would just go online and tightened cellphone vibrator motor you will find plenty so genuine to attach a little bit of pain I do want you want to give a big shout out to our producer kate has been running around getting supplies for the last couple days thanks john major and also to offer nothing designed for mr have done an incredible job isha I think yeah I think just the bristles in this is gonna be so cool so we're gonna try it with a little bit of paint now maybe just a little jane don't make it too heavy and see how just a little bit works well we're gonna put a little bit of paint on it did it come off yeah using the stickem it doesn't like it that's uh I think what we should do is is uh wetted down the painter paints pretty thick and so I had a little bit of sorry jane and goes your water it's just wet it down so that it's less viscous line in san diego she's saying I've always been a little bit intimidated by motors and electronics but mark has made this seem just so doable oh good really is this has got great fun okay? I'm so glad you others there's a nothing mysterious about using these components you know it might be scary yeah, it might and you might not actually understand how a motor works but you can't it doesn't really matter if you want to find out it's always fun but otherwise just use these components how's it working with the paint you guys to stick to water column maybe something here here's james drinking water she won't mind and then you can just add a little bit of you can just it's working well, you can just use the water, get it thiscause studio I know if you put water around the race track when we will slide better so what what might be an interesting thing is they make a puddle like a little bit of a puddle of of pretty thin paint and just have the drop by drive through it and see and see how that does it, eh? Make it yes. Whoa that's what has dicky moving? All right. I said e o just actually well that's pretty cool. So yeah, I think thinner is better or you can get some in interesting things and this is more of a hands on. Things were much more of a collaborator with the with the baht to create create art that you khun get some interesting effect that looks pretty cool so how are you guys doing that's looking good human artist did you guys find that when you put the paint on it slowed it down a bit? Yeah, but still you've made some really interesting thing maybe trying a different color. A warrior bristle bar would kind of slide that's a really good idea. Yeah. Dude, an angle you might be interesting to try with different kinds of india ink too. Where is less did you try putting some, like a pool of paint in the middle and just reading the rope draw bob bristol, but rather go off from its gulf on its own. He likes to spend. Yeah, got that mark along right with day. This battery typically run for that's. A good question. You know, I've never let it run continuously, but this is a motor is so small that is drawing such a tiny amount of current that it would probably run a couple of hours continuously. I think seven years come back and tell us about that one. Yeah, exactly. Jane actually, heating pads we used yesterday might work. Well, that could be good. You get quite a work so much better. Yeah, I think if you see t j k o the using just a little bit of water and running color tinted water and running it through that's really good is an interesting way to get some feathery designs