There are plenty of fantastic tutorials on the internet showing how to make tiny robots called “brushbots” out of toothbrushes (this one is quite good). But we’ve noticed that a lot of the tutorials require soldering – something that not everyone feels comfortable with since it involves molten lead. This tutorial will show how you can make a quick and easy solder-less brushbot.

You’ll need:

• 1 electric toothbrush (look for the cheapest toothbrush possible)
• 1 brush (kitchen scrub brushes often work well)
• some electrical tape
• hot glue (optional)

Step 1: Take apart electric toothbrush

Every electric toothbrush is going to be slightly different, so inspect your electric toothbrush and see if you can figure out how to take it apart. Many brushes aren’t even held together with screws and can just be pulled apart from either end.

You’re going to want to remove all the parts from the inside of the toothbrush. When you’ve gotten it apart, it will look something like this:

To build your brushbot you’ll need the motor and the battery casing.

If most electric toothbrushes come with batteries, if so keep these because they will power your brushbot.

Put the batteries in the battery casing and using tape, tape the battery casing and the motor together so that the batteries are in contact with the motor. When everything is taped together the motor should turn on (this step can be slightly tricky so look for our video tutorial in a couple days).

Now that you have a working motor, it’s just a matter of attaching your motor to the top of your brush. You can do this using more tape or hot glue, whichever you feel the most comfortable with.

Now you should have a working brushbot – congratulations! Look for our video tutorial in the coming days. We’d love for you to send us a picture of your amazing robotic creations!

-MakerBus

http://www.makerbus.ca