video://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwIRV_WmQ7A
Looking for a great Christmas gift for your whiz kid? Here’s a great DIY that shows you how to make a solar powered ball robot. Of course, there exactly isn’t a kit for this but all the parts are easily findable so it might actually work better than any other gift you can buy off the shelf.
This technology of using minimal electronics and simple mechanical design is call BEAM robotics.
The Miniball itself was originally invented by Richard Weait of North York, Toronto.The Miniball is a amazing robot – it uses a simple circuit and the robot itself proves to be very capable, rarely getting stuck. The Miniball is mechanically complex and electronically simple. (But don’t worry – the mechanical part is still pretty easy)
In this case, we aren’t going to build the original Miniball, but a smaller, more basic wannabe version. This robot is extremely simple and can take a beginner less than 2 hours to build.
