Classic Symmet

I haven't posted in a while mostly because I had undertaken a lot of large, complex (for me) projects and I kept getting discouraged because it didn't go as planned.

This weekend I decided to go back to simpler things just so I could start and finish a project and feel some sense of accomplishment. That worked and really helped make me want to go back to those harder robots glaring at me from the workbench, halfway finished.

I started with a classic Symmet model. I had never made one and I always found them strangely elegant.

I'm happy with this even if I wish it was a little more powerful. Seems like the small solar cell coupled with that mini-cassette motor is just enough to make it move around a little at a time.

Still, it's done and quite good looking, if I may say so myself...

Here's the diagram. It is closely inspired by something I had seen in an excellent book called :"Junkbots, Bugbots & bots on wheels".

Here are a few close ups of the underside. As you can see, I soldered the components to each other and the capacitors to the motor itself. I had to use a file and really scuff it good to make sure it would stick.

Since the flashing LED is sensitive to light and this whole thing is meant to be left in the sun, I decided to hide it in a small piece of foamcore. I love foamcore and tend to use it for a lot of things. You can see the final result here.

I also added a small piece of heat-shrink tubing to the motor's spindle (or whatever that thing is called), to give it a little more traction. 

I hope that helps!

This is definitely one of the simpler robot designs out there. Very elegant and hard to screw up. I reccomend it strongly for first timers and youngsters. As I mentioned, this really helped make me feel a bit better about my recent failed attemps. It was an easy win and ended up pretty cool.