"Shimmibots:"
After the first two years teaching my
"eggbot" class at the Museum, I was asked if I might be
able to try something less complicated, for younger kids. In pursuit
of this goal, I started looking for a stepper project that used only
a single motor. A combination of events (my wife returning from a trip
to the Czech Republic, with a cool colored sand and water curio and
finding petri dishes at my local favorite scrap shop) led to the creation
of the first shimmibot. So named, because the program used to control
the motor simply commands it to go back and forth an equal amount.
I have taught the shimmibot class (a single week, 15 hours) to two
groups of 10-12 year olds with good results:
Of course, the interesting part of shimmibots cannot be understood
without seeing them move:
2.6M video -- 1.7M
video
Early experiments with scaling this phenomenon up have been very interesting:
Pizza-pan shimmibot (5.0M video)