Wobble Bot Recreation

Today we will be building our buzzing robots a little differently There are tons of videos online of how to build your battery power friends that jump, waddle around, and dance. Using cardboard and googly eyes, you’ll have a new friend in no time.

How can we make our cardboard friend come to life? We need to attach a battery to his body as well as a motor.

This design is modeled after the Wobble Bot found at Instructable Workshop and is digestible to anyone with the correct materials to work with basic circuitry.

4 bottle (legs)

Cardboard from recycled boxes

Hot Glue Gun/ glue stick

Scissors

Exacto knife

Wire Cutters (ask for help to clip any wires that may need to be clipped before twisting/ fastening together)

Cutting pad

DC Motor Mini Electric Motor 1.5-3V

AA Battery Holder Case with On/Off Switch and Wire Leads

AA batteries

Googly eyes

LED and Resistor

Solder if needed

Using a piece of cardboard paper, cut out the body and the head

The body will act as a base for the battery to ensure there is enough space

You can make the body any shape you want

At each corner of the body hot glue or tape legs using corks from bottles

This can also be done with other lighter materials such as toothpicks, bottle caps, marker caps, ect.

To add some personality, apply hot glue to a battery pack with 2 AA batteries onto the body, close to the head.

The wobble bot will move at a rapid pace so it important to have everything stuck solid

Towards the end of the body, apply an ample amount of glue to the motor, and make sure to press down when adhering.

Add more hot glue for best results

To make it move, add a circuit series path that will power attach the red and black leads from the battery holder to the two tabs connected to the base of the motor.

We want to add an LED light to make the nose of our friend, so when the battery switches it on, there is enough energy being transferred to power the LED and the motor.

Connect both red wires from the motor and battery to one end of the resistor. With both black wires from the motor and battery pack, attach it to the short end of the LED. The final connection should be the empty end of the LED and resistor. Make a hole for the nose and he looks like a Wobble bot version of Rudolph

Without a circuit, the wobble bot is a wobble not. When we derive our energy from the battery, we get enough energy to power the motor and converted LED light.

Well, the resistor acts as a bridge between diverting energy powering the motor into powering the LED.

This is an act of a circuit in series, and we know this because the LED light will activate at the same time as the motor by the on/off switches from the battery pack.

The energy straight from the battery is a direct current, (DC). DC is affected by the resistor that enables it to draw energy from the initial amount of energy. Anytime we use resistors in series, the current will decrease.

video of just the motor running

Did you notice the motor powering the spin of the clothespin? That spin additionally causes the robot to spin as well.

We’re going to replicate this movement with a circuit to power our robots while using a cork of the same 90-degree angle.

It isn’t till we attach the 5th cork to the spindle of the motor do we get the same movement as in the video. This jittery movement is called unwanted vibration.

We want to control this vibration in our wobble bot and get the desired movement in the form of dancing and jumping, while simultaneously lighting the LED that acts as a nose.

And our cork, in this case, is harnessing the energy significantly well when it is inserted exactly in the middle on side of the cork. Different cork orientations make for different movements.

turn the battery pack on and watch your new friend buzz around for hours!