A soup can robot (crossposted from my journal)

[moem]

Here's another thing I made. It's a silly simple robot from a soup can. The nice thing is that it can actually do something, even if it doesn't look like it; it contains very few parts, but enough to make it light up and make sounds. To switch it on, you need to flick the nose upwards. Most people will probably do that out of habit or curiosity.

To see and hear the robot in action, you can watch the video:

All that's in there is the two headphone earbuds (which are tiny speakers), some wires, two LEDs, a switch and a battery pack.
That's not a lot of components. So what allows it to make that babbling sound? Well, there are some hidden components. Inside the LEDs (that are the type made to simulate a candle) there are tiny chips to create the flickering effect. This flicker (made by the chip, that modulates the current) is also the source of the sound you're hearing.
The LEDs are connected to one speaker each, and then to the switch and the battery pack.

I think this is one of the first times I created something with a (very simple) circuit that was not pre-made, and: it actually works. I'm rather proud of this.

Comments

[obstinatecondolement]

That's really cool!

[moem]

Thank you! I had a lot of fun making it. The earbuds have very thin wires and I had to learn how to solder such thin wires, but other than that it was all pretty easy.

[calzephyr]

Aw, so adorable :-) You have every right to be proud - I was just thinking the other day of buying a Snap Circuit kit just to have fun with. It seems like we never really get to do more than scratch the surface in school.

[moem]

Sounds like a plan to me! There's so much cool stuff around...

[calzephyr]

For sure :-) The best advice I ever received was that if you don't understand something, get a kid's book on it. It will be simply explained and have pictures ;-) Nowadays you can get a kit to satisfy your curiosity.

[moem]

That is indeed very good advice!

[kendiefox]

That's super cool!

[moem]

Thank you kindly!