Balance Bot Buddy!

Sometimes you just need a buddy to keep your whole life in balance, and this one's a quickie! And for the aspiring tight-rope walker, this bot is your new role model. Balancing on fingers, noses, ledges, this bot knows no balancing bounds.

• What: Balance Bot
• Time: ~ 5 minutes to make, 5 minutes to modify
• Cost: 25 cents
• Concepts: Balance, Center of Mass, Rotation
• Materials:
  • 2 wood skewers
  • 1 toothpick
  • 1 cork
  • 2 balls plasticine (any clay will do)
  • 2 googly eyes
  • A wee bit o' hot glue
• Tools:
  • Hot glue gun

This is a wonderful balance toy to make, and than change around, iterate, and learn from! You can do tons of center of mass experiments with this buddy, or just play! You might even be able to make it from the first picture alone.

First, insert the two wood skewers so that they are angled down. (You can play around with the position later to get all sorts of different balancing angles).

Next, insert the toothpick on the bottom of the cork facing down.

Then add balls of clay to either side. For the most part, balls about half the volume of a ping-pong ball work great! Experiment to find the best for you.

We need Balance Bot's center of mass to be below the end of th

Every bot can use a little personality. Googly eyes can make it come to life, and a mouth isn't bad either.

It can lay flat on the table, but this bot is made to spin upright. Let it rip!

Great things to change to get different results include:

• The length of the toothpick (cut it)
• The angle and length of the skewers (cut them), and re-poke them
• The size of the clay balls

Have fun balancing!