The May activity for Homeschool Science camp was robotics! As much as we have enjoyed the seed and soil activities, a robotics activity was a great choice for my children. One of their main projects for 4h is Utilizing Science and Technology and robots are really cool! I would have never thought about making robots out of toothbrushes, but that is exactly what we did!
We are on summer break, but we do some school work even in the summer. Our summer schedule is lighter and I try to make sure that we get to do some fun, hands on activities. Brush Bots was a perfect activity for a stormy summer day.
Here is where you will find the link to the instructions for making brush bots.
Here you will find a video showing you exactly what to do. I found this video very helpful!
Supplies needed:
Toothbrush
Double sided sticky tape
Small Rubberband
3 volt battery
small vibrating motor (used in cell phones, pages, and toothbrushes)
scissors
craft glue
decorations such as pom poms, pipe cleaners, googly eyes
The process:
First we had to remove the handle of the tooth brush. I did this by cutting it off with some sharp kitchen scissors. This was not something the children could do themselves.
Next we added some double sided super sticky tape to the part of the toothbrush we were keeping, towards the edge. We then took our motor and stuck it to the tape with the end of the motor hanging just off the edge and the red wire facing down and the blue wire facing out. We wrapped a rubber band around the motor to secure it to the toothbrush.
After that we added another piece of sticky tape to the toothbrush under the red wire and stuck the positive side of the battery facing down. Then we touched the blue wire to the negative side of the battery. This completed the circuit and the motor started to move!
The next step was to decorate the brush bot. We used the pom, poms, pipe cleaners, and eyes to create some creatures. The children made some lady bugs, bumble bees, and spiders. After the glue dried we reattached the blue wire and watched those robots go!
The children learned about positive and negative sides of batteries, completing a circuit, and what a volt is. They also learned about weight distribution, They made some adjustments to their original brush bots when they learned that some of the ones they created were too heavy to make the bots move very well. They also had to adjust where they placed the creatures on the toothbrush if they tried to make them go and they ended up falling over. We had fun racing our brush bots and figuring out which surfaces they worked the best on.
In case you were wondering about our other #CampSci projects, here is our Ecosystem in a bottle that we moved outside.
And some of our garden in a glove plants.
We have loved being a part of this program! I hope you have enjoyed reading my posts and have tried a few of the projects yourself.
Disclaimer: I received the products in this kit complimentary from Monsanto as part of their #CampSci Homeschool Science Program. I received no other compensation and all opinions are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance to the FTC regulations.
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