Kids Project: Build a Bristlebot That Moves without Electricity - Low Tech/No Tech from Scientific American

Don’t have the motors and batteries necessary to create individual bristlebots? You can still give your students a way to try out bristlebots by reversing the typical arrangement. Instead of making the bristlebots vibrate — vibrate the floor. This idea reminds me of the old football games that used a vibrating play field to move the little football player models around the board. You could do the same thing building a simple vibrating floor using just one motor instead of motors for each bristle bot.

This is a great low tech/no tech project to do with your kids so that they can have fun with the concept, even if you are short on supplies and/or time.

Build a Bristlebot That Moves without Electricity

Bristlebots are a fun and popular type of robot made from the head of a toothbrush, a small watch battery and a tiny vibrating motor like the kind found in electric toothbrushes. Although these electronic parts can be hard to find around the house, you can still build bristlebots if you make a simple vibrating table instead. This project will show you how to do it—no electronic parts required!

Read the entire article on Scientific American

Find more bristlebot info and parts on Amazon.com

Comments

Elsewhere Online: AT&T's Spam Filter Gets A Bit Too Aggressive

This story from TechDirt lays out yet another reason I recommend that folks DON'T use the email provided to them by their ISP. My typical recommendation right now is to get a Gmail account instead. It also points out why I want to manage all my SPAM on my end, without pre-filtering from an ISP. I will gladly manage my spam if it helps to insure that I see as many of my "real" messages as possible. Again, Gmail's tools work pretty good in this regard. Having an alternative email account also insures you will keep the same email, even if you decide to leave your current ISP. Witness all the folks holding onto AOL accounts just to keep their AOL email address. Thank goodness at least that is free now. AT&T's Spam Filter Gets A Bit Too Aggressive You can certainly understand why ISPs offer spam filters. It's a service for users who don't want to be totally bombarded with spam. But what I've never understood is that these ISPs rarely give the user a

On my iPhone…IFTTT (If This Then That) for iOS

IFTTT (If This Then That) for iOS IFTTT (If This Then That) for iOS My best description of IFTTT, both their main web site, and this new iOS app is "a scripting language for the We." It allows you to set up "recipes" that watch one particular service, like Feedly, Evernote, Gmail and more, and then take action on another service whenever a particular action occurs. I use this to automatically save my shared items from Feedly and elsewhere into an Evernote Notebook and also use it to post automatically post information on a variety of services. The iOS app adds to this functionality by allowing you to take various actions on your phone and triggering IFTTT actions whenever they occur. In the case of the iPhone, initiating actions can include adding new contacts to your iPhone, taking a new picture and more. For more complete information on how IFFTT works, visit ifttt.com From the iTunes App Store... " Put the internet to work for you. IFTTT lets y

This DIY domino clock tells the time using three LED-lit tiles via Arduino Blog

After coming across Carbon Design Group’s Domino Wall Clock, which uses electronic magnetic coil motors to reveal white dots, Instructables member “Kothe” decided to create a simplified version of their own. The clock is comprised of three custom dominoes — the first tile for hours, the second and third for minutes. Unlike its inspiration, Kothe’s device uses addressable RGB LEDs as dots that allow for a variety of colors to shine through. Read This DIY domino clock tells the time using three LED-lit tiles via Arduino Blog An interesting link found among my daily reading

TechnologyIQ

Search This Blog