1All the parts you need the robot parts' 2 - 1,5V motors 2 - SPDT switchs mechanically easy to trigger

2 - AA battery 1 - AA battery holder 1 - plastic or wooden pearl 1 - heat shrink that will fit over the motor shaft I like to buy my stuff here http://www.solarbotics.com/ http://allelectronics.com/ http://www.goldmine-elec.com/default.htm http://www.bgmicro.com/ If you recycle it might be all FREE! Try searching old VCR, PS2, old toys, print er, etc Back then, I use to recycle EVERYTHING, I got everything FREE, old VCR are very good for gears and something SPDT switchs!!! Playstation have great super good m otors, the one that makes the laser move. the tool to complet the robot 1 - safety glasses 1 - soldering iron 1 - glue gun 1 - wire strippers 1 - side cutter 1 - scissors, knife, x-acto, etc You need some 1,5Volts motor, not 3V or no event 12V!! Each motors are powered by a SINGLE AA battery! You will draining your battery i f you use bigger motor. You can find them in toys or even at your local dollarra ma, in little car, fans, etc! ( beware, they might really suck you battery down ) the SPDT swiths need to be really sensitive! I have order some the order day tha t where to hard to activated, that might cause some problems and the robot might not even avoid obstacles but rather hug them until death. These swiths are the most expensive part of the robot... around 1$ to 4$ each. The one I use are from Cherry. http://www.cherrycorp.com/english/switches/sealed/dcjk.htm You should check http://www.solarbotics.com for some great motors. They even hav e a SPDT switch in store! I have never tried them but Grant did. Here is a picture of the Solarbotics switchs in use. The beetlerobot was build b y Grant McKee, the engineer for Solarbotics but currently works for WOWWEE in Ho ngkong ( poor Grant! :P) http://grant.solarbotics.net/images/MISC/Beetle_bot-IMG_3138.jpg http://grant.solarbotics.net/Misc.htm step 2Preparing the parts Cut 13 pieces of 2,5inch long electric wire. step 3Preparing the parts Now just remove around 1cm to each extremity of the wire. In other word, strip the wire at both end. That is 0.3935 inch to be precise. After that you need to thin the end of each wire with your soldering iron. step 5start soldering solder each wire to your parts. step 6the famous third connection Here is the principal and most important thing about the beetlerobot. It is call the "third connection"In you AA battery you have 2 wires that provide 3Volts. In reality, we only use 1,5Volts for both motors. How can we get half the voltage? simple, you solder a wire like the picture belo

w. I solder a 2 inch long blue wire. step 7glueing switchs Glue your switchs on the battery holder in a V shape. Don't forget to put the blue "third connection" wire in front. I have found a much more efficient way to but the switchs on the battery holder. You can glue them in a A shape so both antenna cross and will not get stuck in a leg chair. step 8glueing the motors Glue both motors on the battery holder Make sure they spin forward... I have just realise that this does not make any sense at all! :P Look at the third picture how you can angle out the motors for speed. step 9the back caster Here you are going to make the third wheel, the back caster using a plastic or w ooden pearl. You can make something fancy or very simple. I took the BIG paperclip. If you can not find a wooden pearl, you can use the paperclip directly on the fl oor. It will work but might catch on stuff while rolling around. step 10soldering the brain Here is the hard part, soldering each wire. Look at this picture and do the same :P One thing that I forgot to do back then, was to use different colours for the wi res to simplify everything. with some special software I was able to achieve that. step 11the antenna! You are going to give your little robot some way to feel the world. Take the small paperclip and bend them to form some antenna. Glue them on the metal plate pf the SPDT switchs. I don't recommend soldering them because you need some aggressive acid-based flu x or silver solder. If you don't have any experience in soldering, you will melt them. I have already solder some using silver solder. step 12melting some shoes... Take the heatshrink and shrink them on the shaft of your motors. Use a lighter t o attach them. Yo can put more layer if you want to, different colours. I even saw some people use hot glue stick on the end of the shaft. They took 1cm of the glue stick and attach it directly to the shaft. BEWARE, you robot wil be VERY speedy and it might destroy itself on the first obstacle it will hit.

step 13FINISH! to debug the robot go to my website http://beetlerobot.solarbotics.net/debug.htm step 14how does it work? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switch ps- This robot does not stop the opposite motor when it touch a wall, it REVERSE the opposite motor so the robot will pivote and avoid obstacle the GOOD WAY! BEAM powered robot will short circuit the opposite motor so the robot will need to push it's way out . step 15how does it work? - the motor The electric motor spin when you apply electricity to it. It will spin clockwise

and anti-clockwise when you swap the polarity. If the robot spin in circle after installing the battery, swap the connection of the reversing motor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_motor FACEBOOK TWITTER EMAIL EMBED PRINT PDF step 16how does it work? - the motor and the switch Here is the complete circuit and one half of the beetle robot brain! Click the next step to see how electricity flow in the circuit!

step 17how does it work? - the motor and the switch part 2 Here you can see what happen when electricity flow through the circuit. Check th e second picture. So you can see that one battery will power BOTH motor when the robot run around your house. The second battery is only to reverse the beetlerobot when it get stuck. SO this battery will last longer!! Swap the battery to prolong your battery life and also the robot life. If the opposite motor does not spin, this mean that you might have a weak batter y or simply that the third connection is not working right.

step 18Debugging Does your robot go in a straight line? Here is a quick fix. If the robot start rolling in circle you can add a "blob" of glue to the weak mo tor. To know the weak motor, simply put the robot on the floor... if it goes to the l eft add some glue on the left motor. This will make a bigger shaft and makes the left side travel a longer distance and correct the path of the robot. It does n ot mean that you motor is weak, it could just be the angle of your motor.