Page 201 - Robot Builder's Bonanza

Chapter 17

Building Bots

from Found Parts

“
ound parts” are things you find around the house— or garage or hardware store or any-
Fwhere else— that are just begging to be used in your next robot. Or used as your next
robot! Found parts can help reduce the costs of building a robot. And if the found part can be
used as is, without any special cutting, it makes building the robot easier because you don’t
need as many tools for construction.
Toys are among the most popular form of found parts, and these are covered in their own
chapter; see Chapter 16, “Constructing High- Tech Robots from Toys” for more details. In this
chapter you’ll learn how to adapt common household articles and retrofit them for use in
everyday robots.
There’s practically no limit to the number and type of found items you can press into using
with your robotics projects— either as the body of the robot itself, or as part of a subsystem.
Rather than even attempt to cover them all, this chapter explores the concepts of using found
parts to stimulate your creativity.

A Dozen Ideas to Get You Started

There are plenty of everyday objects you can use for robot building— all it takes is looking at
them a bit differently than the objects’ manufacturers intended. Some examples to whet your
appetite (all of these have been turned into robots, either by me or by someone I know):
Plastic storage containers: Available in square, round, and other shapes, these durable
plastic boxes— available in the housewares section of any department store— can be
used with or without their press- on lids. Plastic boxes are available from small snack size
to big shoe boxes.
Small “dorm- size” trash cans: Just large enough to hold a Big Gulp, these trash cans
have a convenient cylindrical shape and removable top. Great for building miniature
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