Big $3 Solderless Bristle bot

Step 1: Big $3 Solderless Bristle bot

Toothbrush sized bristle bots are for kids. Lets take these bots one size bigger and see if we can get them to clean our floors.

Only $3 and takes all of five minutes. Completely solderless to boot.

For a smaller bristlebot kit thats great for adults and kids, visit BrownDogGadgets.com. You'll have a little bristlebot running aound your place in no time.

Step 2: What You Need

Most everything you need can be bought from the local Dollar Store, Radio Shack, or you probably have it in your house right now.

Dollar Store Items
$1. A Cheap Electric Toothbrush. We're stealing it's motor.
$1. A cheap scrub brush. Try to get one with little to no rubber grips on it.

Radio Shack
$1. AA Battery Holder. With attached leads.
$0.50 A little switch. Optional really.

Around the house
Copper Wire. Steal from other stuff if you can, you only need a tiny bit.
Hot (melt) Glue Gun
Wire Strippers (Optional)
AA Batteries.

Step 3: Solder if you want...

So my battery holder didn't have attached wires, so I added some with solder. Again, you don't need to solder anything if you don't want to. Just buy a battery holder with wires.

Step 4: Switches Me On

Oh cheap little switch, how nice you are.

Hook up your positive wire to the middle of the switch. Be sure to wrap that wire around there nice and tight!

Then wrap another wire around one of the other legs.

Seriously though, you only need like 2 inches of wire for this entire project.

Step 5: Motor Mouth

Hook up the wire from the switch to the motor.

Hook up the negative wire from the battery.

Don't worry about positive and negative when it comes to two tabs on the motor. In this case it doesn't matter one bit.

Make sure you wrap the wire around!

Now... give it a test....

Step 6: Glue Me Tight

Hot glue the battery pack, switch, and motor on.

Try putting the motor out front first. Rip it off and move it around if your bot starts going in circle.

You're finished. Gee, that was easy.

Step 7: Bending Softly

One thing you might want to try doing is bending the bristles back for a bit to give your bot a forward slant. This helps it move in a strait direction, as opposed just trying to spin left or right.