How to Make a Robot

Today we want to teach you how to make a robot easily. A robot is a machine programmed automatically to fulfill a certain function (walking, running, jumping, hitting, cleaning, sweeping, etc). Robots are usually made to perform certain heavy actions that a human could not easily accomplish, but robots of various types can be made. The types of robots that exist vary their functionalities depending on what we want like rolling, skating, painting.

Even many of the robots that exist, are to facilitate common activities of humans, especially in the matter of household appliances. That is why robots are part of our life and industry of this type grows more and more. In Japan, for example, robots are used for different purposes, from serving customers in airports, to guiding people in stores, or as simple entertainment. There are even robotic operating rooms, which allow interventions with greater accuracy, managing specialized areas of a body for handling.

To make a robot at home, it is better to think about how we want it to be and give it shape by looking for a logical way to make it work. If you want to make a robot at home but you do not know how to do it or what is needed, then we can give you some ideas to make a robot at home easily and with utensils that you can find with great ease. We will show you 3 basic ways to make a robot that moves easily, you can put the shape you want to these robots, but the bases will be the same, and the best is that they are very easy to make and effective. Find out how to make a robot at home easy and fast with things you can find at home, take a pencil and paper, write down what you will need and get to work.

What do you need to make a robot?

• A battery of 9 to 13 volts
• Small rotating motor with 1 kg of force
• Wire conductor
• Pallet wood sticks of about 10 cm or a wooden board
• Plastic sticks or thick wire 4 small toy wheels or soda lids (if it is a soda lids it is recommended to cover them with rubber bands)
• Rubber alloys
• A cutter Isolate tape
• Hot silicone gun
• Nuts and screws of the same size
• A small switch
• Nuts and bolts
• A soda can
• Some basic  Tools

Instructions for making a robot

1.       It is better that you decide first what you intend to do. When we get used to the idea of ​​what we want, it is easier to follow a pattern. When you have a pattern you can investigate how this project can be developed. If you do not have a very clear idea of ​​what to do, do not worry, we can start by creating a basis to understand what it is about. You will need to have a set of tools so you can make your robot.

2.       We will start by preparing the base of the robot, it does not matter if you want the robot to have humanoid shape or if you want it to look like a stroller the base of this robot will be the same. You can use cardboard to make the base or wood, in this case it is better to use wood if you want the homemade robot to have more resistance or a more professional finish, it is even advisable to use plastic, and you just have to look for a plastic splint for to be able to make the base.

3.       The reason why it is preferable to use wood is because the wood can be cut at home and is relatively easy to handle. Especially in the case of plywood, it is much easier to make custom cuts, while the cardboard is a very fragile material that in contact with water can lose resistance or even damage the product, but can still be used if it is thick, while wood can serve as an insulating material to prevent electric currents from being a danger when touching the robot.

4.       In case of wood, it must be thick to be drilled, and if it is plastic or cardboard we will have to use a base for the tires, which is why we recommend using wood. You will make 2 holes horizontally across the rectangle of the board, both will be straight on each bank until you pass the board, they should be as straight as possible or the robot will not work well. You also have a small cut in the center of the table; this is to put a pulley which will turn by the engine and a rubber band.

5.       If you do not have a drill or you fear that it could be a risk for you to use it, do not worry. Draw some circles in the areas mentioned above, and using a cross-head screwdriver, turns it straight, taking care that it does not slip, and you will see how it begins to form a hole where you painted the circle. The drawings will serve as guides for not leaving the area that we are going to drill. This way you can make the holes without using an electrical device. As a last option, you can ask someone to make the holes in your place. This is especially recommended in the case of children who do not know how to use this type of tool.

6.       With 2 wires go through the holes, passing between the rubber band and the pulley, take a measure of how much wire you need to pass through the hole, the link and the pulley, to that extent increases 2 cm more. Take the tires and stick one to one end of the wire, then pass the wire through the board and stick on the other rim or soda lids. At this moment our base resembles a stroller.

7.       You can also use a wooden stick instead of the wire, because this only fulfills the function of joining the tires to move the robot. Ideally, it should be a thick wire or, in its case, a wooden or plastic stick, since these last two materials are a bit more resistant and do not represent a risk in case of electric current. Of course, if these materials are not available, we can also cover the wire with insulation tape as a preventive measure.

8.       If you use chopsticks, you must take special care that they are not too thick or they cannot rotate well between the holes in the table and they will get stuck, and if they are very thin they can break or the robot wobbles, which would be a disadvantage for our project.

9.       It is important that when you put the stick between the holes in the board, you also allow the stick to pass through the hole in the pulley and bind it. After this it will be good if you stick the pulley once determined the place where we will fix it, with a little liquid silicone or some glue that fixes it well so that it does not move and can generate the rotation that we are looking for, always taking care that Adhere the glue to the league or it will be useless to have placed it because it will not rotate. Once this is done, we can finally stick the wheels to the ends.

10.   At one end of the board, approximately at the beginning of a third of the edge of the board you will place the motor, this is on the opposite side of the pulley or a little in the center of the board. For this you have to put hot silicone on the table in the part where you will place the engine. The motor must also have a pulley, but if you do not have an integrated one, you must wear it.

11.   It must be far enough away from the pulley of the stick so that there is tension in the link and it can turn later by friction when starting the engine. Depending on the length of the link and the resistance of the same, it is the separation that will exist between the motor and the pulley of the stick. Remember that the better the tension in the league, the better it will turn, but neither should you overdo the tension or the league could easily be broken and you would have to remove the tires and the stick to change the league.

12.   Place the band, when the engine has been turned on, the band will rotate by also rotating the pulley and the wheels next to it.

13.   We will take the switch and with hot silicone we will glue it to the other end of the base, that is, contrary to where the pulley is at about the beginning of a third of the end of the splint. Then we will connect the wires of the driver to the switch and stick it with insulation tape. We have finished the base of our robot.

14.   It is very important that you check that the switch cables are properly positioned and that there is no contact between the cables to avoid a short circuit or other complications, so before installing the cables, it would be good to use insulating tape to separate them, allowing only the part that will be in contact with the switch, which is not isolated. After joining the cables and pressing them well with the switch to prevent them from coming loose, you can now attach the switch to the board with adhesive tape.

15.    It will also be necessary that we put a base for AAA or AA batteries that give energy to our engine so that it can work. This base can be used for almost any mobile device that we want to do. It is better if we use a switch that is operated by remote control to make it easier to handle the product. This base is used to make homemade toys in the shape of cars, mobile baskets, or whatever we want to be able to move. But we'll show you some ideas of what you can do with your robot so that it looks aesthetically interesting and has a function.

16.   The finished cases of robots that we can see are the mobile candy sweeper, which can be used to pass sweets from one place to another in the room without having to move, and a mobile lamp, which sire to light our way without the need that we have to hold a lamp and with the advantage that the path by which we walk will already be illuminated. In the case of the latter, we have placed a home generator that works to turn on our focus manually and we can turn on the robot by hand or operate it by remote control.

17.   Now it's time to prepare the outside of the robot, you can make it look like a car by putting a lid equal to one's and sticking it with silicone, or arranging it as a doll or animal. The place where the switch is located should always be visible and manually handy to turn the robot off or on, so we will omit to put something on the base of the robot.

18.   As you can see, this base is multipurpose, so we can do many things with it, from simple mobile robots, to more complex structures.

19.   You can also make a worm robot if you make a base with three feet, one thick and two feet thinner on the sides. To the thick part you will put one or two wheels, on the sides too. For the worm robot to move you will put the motor on one end of the foot and the switch on the other end, with the cables attached as we said before.

20.   You can even combine shapes and make a robot that advances like the typical worm robot, but with four feet, which in this case can be carried by wheels, so it will be even more interesting to see how the robot advances like a worm at the same time wheels work as if it were a small car that moves for periods. We show you an image so you can see how it could be.

21.   It is better to use a more powerful engine and place it on only one side of the robot, thus maintaining the balance while moving while we can manage and organize the controls without opening the robot to manipulate it. In these cases it is also advisable to use a device that can be operated remotely. These can be obtained in online stores on the Internet, in robotics and electronics stores, and even reuse remote-controlled pieces of toys.

22.   It will be necessary that instead of pulleys you use gears so that the movement generated by the ignited engine is able to move the gears and with these the articulations of the robot. It is also important that the joints are not too rigid, so they can move more easily. They must not be too loose or the robot could disassemble, so it will be necessary to use nuts to join the parts to the robot.

23.   Then we will put a fifth wheel at the feet supported by a wire base that does not impede the movement of the wheel, as it will pull the feet and make the robot move forward, and we will connect the wheel to the edge of the motor by a pulley, so that the wheel turns and with its force, bring the outer feet close to the central foot and travel like a worm.

24.   We can make this same structure with gears and pulleys so that you can make a more advanced mobile body and in this way make a walking robot. You only need to connect the gears to the joints of the robot so that it moves when you knob the switch and walk. You can also make a humanoid robot if you put a box with LEDs as eyes that are attached to the generator, so they will shine every time you turn on the robot.

25.   In the case of this humanoid robot, all we have done is take the previous structure and give it a more aesthetic finish by placing a head that matches the arms and feet of the base. For this we have only put some LEDs in a box which will fulfill the function of head. These LEDs or small bulbs will connect them to the current so that when the robot is turned on the eyes will also light up.

26.   In case of making a custom robot as humanoid, it will be necessary to join the eyes with the current, for which you will have to use cable to connect them, although you can also choose to put batteries especially for the eyes.

Tips for making a robot

A simple way to have a mobile robot without spending batteries, is to use a car battery or rechargeable batteries that are used in lamps to recharge with the electric current of the plug.

1.       If the motor cables are not long enough for the robot you are doing, do not worry, you can look for cables of the same caliber and attach them each to each end of the motor cables so that they can reach the switch even if it is found outside the base.

2.       It is essential that whenever you extend a cable joining it with another, insulate the union with tape and / or glue to avoid faults or short circuits that may represent a danger when using or building your robot.

3.       It is not advisable to use a metal base, because metal is a powerful conductor, unless the robotic mechanism that we are doing does not have electric power to work and only be "rope", or we know how to isolate it, always It is better to opt for wood or plastic.

4.       You can find a switch in a store, or you can use any switch you find on the card of your old computer that you no longer need.

5.       You can also take out the battery and its base on the PC card, just use a little tin and a soldering iron to take off these objects.

6.       You may find it necessary to use screws and nuts in some parts, so we recommend you have some on hand. You can let your imagination go and do everything you want, however it is recommended that you make a scheme or pattern to measure the size of the pieces you need and what you are willing to build, because many times in robotics the accuracy has a role very important to obtain the most optimal results.

7.       The motors of the small fans are also useful for making robots, you just have to open the fan, extract the motor and the useful parts, and use them to make your project.

8.       Remember that these are bases and you can give them the utility or finish you want, here we just told you how to form a basic structure for you to make a mobile robot that moves by remote control or that we can turn on by hand.