SolarSpeeder

SolarSpeeder
Originally uploaded by Chris Tengi.

Volume 6 of Make Magazine had articles on the theory behind and the construction of BEAM robots. My wife thought that her boys would enjoy building some beambots, so she bought us all some kits from Solarbotics. Pictured here is the kit that Mark built (with my direction and assistance).

This particular beambot is a solarroller. Place it under a bright light source (like the sun) and wait a little while. Eventually, the solar cell will charge a large capacitor (located under the PC board) and the BEAM circuit will dump the charge to the motor. This little guy is quite zippy when it takes off!

This was Mark's first soldering job, and I think he did pretty darn well.

Technorati Tags: Make, BEAM, beambot, SolarRoller