Craftjunk: Homemade Walking Robot

ZRecs Labs began experimenting with homemade toy robots a few weeks ago after securing an interesting wind-up motor from a bad toy. After detailing the butchering of other helpless toys to harvest a few more motors in a subsequent post, a drastic increase in the speed limit on the road to banning BPA kept us busy for a bit, but behind the scenes we continued to craft away at our robots. Suddenly we have a lot to show for it.

This week we'll share instructions for making three robots using three different powering mechanisms and achieving three distinctly different effects, but all using the same basic principle of an eccentric weight on a motor that makes the motor vibrate. Be warned: Rubber duckies were decapitated, craft gourds were painted pink, and at least one motor was destroyed by super glue in the process. Today, we'll show off our walking robot.

Walking Robot, Pull-String Motor

This robot utilizes the eccentric-weight motor we harvested from a Lamaze-brand infant toy; the motor has a pull string and is encased in a cool plastic housing. We replaced the fabric handle with a wooden bead, wrapped the motor in two lengths of wire that terminate in four legs, and started decorating.

I selected a small gourd grown in our garden a few years ago for a body, used masking tape to attach it to the leg armature, and Z chose to paint it pink. That led us to consider a PVC rubber duckie we'd been meaning to get rid of because it may contain phthalates (the irony: it's pink because it's a breast cancer awareness rubber duckie), which we promptly beheaded. Z had the inspiration to put a bell in its head, which turned out to be a stroke of genius.

Her second moment of unanticipated brilliance was one I gently resisted at first: She wanted to paint the duck's head pink as well. This is simply because she loves to paint things, and I was concerned the creature would lose some of its personality in the process. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

Robots look better with sequins.

This robot in action:



Later this week we'll show off the other two robots shown in the photo above: "Little Puppy," a jumping robot with a corded remote, and a robot that draws with markers as it walks.