#bristlebot

I found a simple car model on Thingiverse (thing 3554097), and modified it to include room for a button cell battery, two steel thumbtacks, and a small pager motor. I knew that it probably wouldn’t move forward all that well without any kind of directional components, but it was going to be made from twenty cents worth of 3D printed PLA and things I had sitting around, so I wasn’t too worried.

By soldering the tacks onto the ends of the pager motor’s wires, they can be used as large paddles to easily make contact. I decided to do it this way to allow the button cell battery to easily be slotted in and pulled out as a way of turning the vibrobot on and off. I’d considered wiring in an on/off switch, but ultimately decided to keep things simple.

This wasn’t Brady’s first time soldering (apparently there are high school classes that cover such things these days... huh), but it was still a little tricky, since tiny wires wrapped around a tack isn’t your typical soldering job. Using a bench magnifier made things significantly easier... and probably safer, too. The motor was mounted in the car using CA glue, and I used my 3D pen to melt a bunch of PLA on the soldered tacks to keep them in place.

As a final touch (well, more of an afterthought, really), we painted it with a combination of airbrushing and a small paint brush for the fine details.

So, does it work?

Our class was tasked to make a Rube Goldberg machine: We were split into pairs, and each pair was given an input sensor and an output mechanism. We then had to convert our input to our output using an Arduino board and code. The pairs with maching outputs and inputs also had to work together to make sure that the inputs and outputs would work together.

Me and @laxaa were given a magnet switch as our input and a vibration motor as our output. A common "hack" of the vibration motor is the Bristlebot, which consists of the motor placed on a brush head, along with the obligatory "googely eyes". We didn't have a brush head laying around, but our studio is always filled with empty beer cans... The cans are both light and stiff enough to function the same as a brush head. We put the vibration motor inside the beer can, put some googely eyes on it and placed it on a ramp. We coded the Arduino to power the vibration motor for a couple of seconds after registering the magnet sensor triggering once. After that we worked with @eilarishovd and @muberrein on where to place the magnet sensor, and with @clementinerusten and @eirunnmkvalnes to test the sensitivity of their proximity sensor.

A couple weeks ago, I cobbled together a prototype bacteriophage bot that skittered around. It worked OK but it really didn’t look very aesthetically pleasing.

A few days ago, I designed a nicer version in Blender, uploaded it to Shapeways, scaled it to 100mm (about 4″), and ordered a print.

Here’s what I got back.

I taped a phone vibrator motor and a button battery to the bottom. (I added the…

Disclaimer: This was an extremely hasty build. Took about two hours, start to finish, using materials I had lying around. It is definitely not a polished end-product.

A bacteriophage is a virus that feeds off bacteria. They’re also really creepy-looking, like something you’d expect to be skittering around your kitchen floor late at night, looking for scraps.

By Adenosine – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0,

Quick project by Peter - the bristle bot mothership! Featuring a relay to power the engine on and off, as well as a WS2812B connected to a Wemos D1 mini. 

Also check out Peter’s Bus “Die Tüftelei”, currently located at the “Märchenbazar”, where you can attend DIY workshops until December 29, 2018. And if you’re already there, stop by at the Munich Maker Lab which is just around the corner. 

Brown Dog Gadgets – Bristlebot Kit – 25 Pack

Everything you need to build 25 Bristlebots, each in their own individual package.

Product Features

25 pre-cut toothbrush heads

25 double-sided tape strips

25 vibrating pager motors

25 coin cell batteries

50 googley eyes + 50 chenille strips