Make A Simple Soft Robot With Hot Glue Sticks

Soft robot mad out of glue sticks . via instructables

Here is an inspiration for you on how to make a soft robot in less than an hour!

Okay, it is not exactly soft you will argue, but it has some soft parts – the glue sticks! Not only they are soft, but they have a very important feature – they form the body of the robot and they act as springs. It is important to realise that their springy quality is used to drive the robot forward.

The robot is able to move because its tail has very little friction with the ground when moves in one direction and very high friction on the opposite direction. The tail is simply pulled forwards by the two ropes. Then they release, the springy quality of the glue sticks pushes the front forwards while the tail is stuck to the ground.

The list is very simple:
• Some thin nylon rope
• Hot glue and sticks
• Servo
• Arduino (Uno or Mini or any other microcontroller that can drive a servo)
• Battery

Full tutorial


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1 Comment

  1. That’s a great idea! I’m imagining a rainbow of pom poms covering the spring/glue stick body and becoming an inching caterpillar. it would be fun to experiment with different combs to provide traction on different surfaces…

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