Easy Halloween Brushbots

Halloween is a good time to invest in a new toothbrush, but before you throw out that old electric toothbrush, why not use it to give your Halloween decorations a little life by turning them into super lo-fi bristlebots?

All you really have to do is fit an electric toothbrush into a Halloween decoration so that the bristles of the toothbrush make contact with the ground and it will move around in strange and mysterious ways. The size and weight of the decoration will determine how well the electric toothbrush motor is able to move it, and the angle at which the bristles make contact with the ground will determine the direction that it moves. You may want to use additional brushes so that it moves more smoothly, like I did to the severed hand decoration.

(This tutorial first appeared on MAKE: PROJECTS)

I used some old Oral B Pulsar toothbrushes for this project, because the batteries can be replaced but the brushes can’t, so I decided that making them into bristlebots was better than throwing them away. Other electric toothbrushes should work just as well and the decoration just has to be light enough for the toothbrush to move it around.

Cut holes in the decoration for the brush bristles to fit through. The angle that the brush touches the ground can determine the direction that the decoration will move, adding more brushes can influence the movement as well.

Fit the electric toothbrush into the decoration. You may have to finesse it a little bit to get the bristles to make good contact with the ground.

Have fun!