Output Devices
Since I had already showed that I could control a servo from my ATtiny last week, I decided to try something new: the vinyl cutter!
Vinyl cut Bristlebot
A bristlebot is a simple robotic toy with a battery and a vibrating motor for propulsion. The movement is pretty random, but if you get the center of mass about right and shape the bristles correctly it goes straight. :) I figured it would be fun to try cutting out a copper sheet in the vinyl cutter and have the sheet be the body and the copper the wires that would be press-fit onto the motor and the battery, so no solder would be necessary.
| The Body: |
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It was surprisingly easy to come up with the design of the body (even if it may look complex). The two strips on either end wrap around and become circular legs. The vibrating motor has two pads which will be connected through the two squares on the lower left body. The motor is held in place by the mushroom sticking out to the right. The battery sits just above the motor and hooks into place using the two opposing strips and the long strip between the upper legs(!) |
Next I tried cutting out just the body in paper in the laser cutter to be sure I had the shape right.
And it actually worked (it drove in circles, and I had to make a couple of body parts stronger in the final design), but pretty close. |
So next was figuring out the vinyl cutter. It took some tries to get the force just right (it's still not perfect, but close enough).
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My original plan was that the backing of the copper would be strong enough to work as the body, but in the end I figured is was better to cut an extra piece of vinyl in the laser cutter and stick the two together.
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Finally, I just had to assemble them:
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| Here's a small VIDEO! (In a future version I might go back to using the backing of the copper as the robot body, but let the designer cut out the shape of the legs on the fly to try to make their robot more stable. Also, there must be a way to attach the motor that does not require as much fiddling!). |
