Work / Fig 18 · Lab
Bristle bot
A vibrator motor on a toothbrush head. Erratic, educational, and the right first robot.
LABRobots
A bristle bot on a steel ruler: a toothbrush head with a coin vibration motor and a button cell on top. The motor buzzes, the bot chatters, and its slanted bristles turn the shaking into a slow creep along the ruler to the end stop.
Vibration, toothbrush, first principles
The smallest useful robot: a motor, bristles, chaos. It teaches locomotion without lying about how simple the physics is.
Stack
Vibration motor