BubbleBot

This is an adjustment I made to a solarspeeder so it can navigate rough surfaces, change direction if it hits a wall and is less likely to fall down a crevice. It can bounce off a wall, recharge, then shoot off again - so it can adapt to more environments than the original, which can only cope with a straight path.

The main changes I made to fit the solarspeeder into the bubble were:

- Bending the smaller capacitor down below the chassis, rather than having it point straight forward.
- Mounting the motor in the opposite direction.
- Chopping off the front triangles.

I also bent the chassis a bit so that the back wheel was always touching the bubble. I tried using a bigger wheel, but the motor couldn't cope. I bought the bubble from a craft shop and it was called something like an 'Acrylic Bauble' and was under a dollar.

After I built it, I saw another version floating around the net that uses a wheel poking above the chassis to prevent the bot rolling over and having the solar cell facing down - which sounds like it should be a necessary addition.

This is the second step (the first being the construction of the solarspeeder) in my plan to create a rolling garden bot that can cope with grass and inquisitive pets that could jump on it. I'd be interested in seeing if putting the BubbleBot into something like a beachball-sized sphere can handle this, but I haven't found anything like a clear beach ball that you can put something into and still blow up...