Mousebot Construction

My mentor won these in MAKE's Kit-A-Day Giveaway.  We put it together for c4k. This is our second project and we wanted to share it with you.
Herbie the Mousebot is a very speedy light-seeking robot with functional whisker and tail sensors!

We photographed and tried to identify the parts.

Remove the connector tabs and use sand paper to smooth the attachment points.

This step was tricky for us. Make sure your IR sensors are on the side of the board with the mouse printed on it. Bend the IR sensors leads down 90° towards the flat side. Install it at PD1 and PD2. Solder in place.

Load these pads up with a lot of solder.

Use the masking tape to help hold the boards together. Point the Battery Connector towards the wider side of Herbie. Once they are stable, heat up the solder in the main pad pairs to connect Herbie.

There are 12 more places to solder to connect Herbie's body.

The Backup relay goes in location RE1 in front of the battery connector. The pins will stick out through the top where you solder them in place.

Install the IC socket at the IC1 spot. Make sure you're using socket and not LM386! Note the notch position! Use picture number 1.

Push LM386 into the IC carrier.

Install resistor in the location R1. Make sure that you are using one with the yellow / purple / red bands.

Bend transistor down 90° towards the flat side. Put it in location Q1so its close to the board where the straight line is printed.

Put the power switch into the location C1.

Install it near the C1 location but make sure that positive and negative leads go into the right spot.

Install the tail through the hole on the wider part of Herbie. Use a lot of solder to hold the tail spring to the solder pad.

Use paperclip to make the tail sensor ring. You probably need two pair of pliers to bend your paperclip into a loop. This was the hardest part, except when we soldered parts into the wrong place.

Put your newly bent paperclip around the tail spring. Bend the loop down so it goes through the hole in front of tail spring. Make sure loop is 9 mm away from the board. Solder in place.

Put the wheels on the motors. Wipe motors with alcohol or window cleaner so that DSST sticks better. You don't want your motors falling off! Cut the tape to fit your motors. Before putting tape on, make sure white dots are next to each other. Solder wire clippings to the motor leads.

Align the black part of the motor with the top of the pad. Put the wire clippings through the - M+ . 

Use paperclip leftover and bend 3 mm of the end of the paperclip up slightly. Put the wire through the hole on the front of the Herbie, through the bead and through the hole on the other side. Solder in place and cut off the extra part. 

Snap the battery on to the battery board. For us, this was a pretty tight fit.

Shine a flashlight into Herbie's eyes. Turn Herbie on, put him on the ground and see if he goes toward the light. If not, check your manual for troubleshooting.

Bend the sensor wire into w and bend 3 mm 90° up . Repeat for the second whisker.

Put the whiskers through the sensor holes and through the whisker anchor. Make sure whiskers don't touch the edge of the hole. Make them look pretty and whiskery!