Jitterbots!!

Wow!  What a day, I've been working ALL day on my Jitterbots (I decided to give them a new name because they don't really seem like bugs)!  It's been a fun process but definitely frustrating at times.  There has been so much problem solving along the way which requires a lot of patience (it's a good thing I'm a teacher so I have a lot of that!).  So here is what I've been up to.  First step was to spraypaint all  of the pieces of my Jitterbots...pretty much everything came from my recycling bin (which I love!!).

Then I started to put some pieces together and add some decorations, getting everything balanced and looking the way I wanted it was a challenge!

Here is a video of the "tail" portion of my white Jitterbot before I attached it to the bottle (my dog just can't keep his nose out of these things!!):

For some reason I can't get the videos to load on blogger right now... I will try to reload them tomorrow

After I working on the white Jitterbot, I started working on the purple one:

Here is the initial video of my purple Jitterbot:

As you can see, I was having a hard time getting the purple Jitterbot to stay standing.  I had to figure out how to stabilize the purple Jitterbot so that it would stay standing!!

Here is a picture with all four of the Jitterbots in their preliminary stages!  Things changed as I was working, and they definitely changed from my original ideas (see previous blog post with sketch!).

I think what changed the most with my Jitterbots is that I had to figure out how to stabilize them all so that they would remain standing while they were moving.  Some were easier to solve than others.  Here is a video of my white Jitterbot, which was the first one that I finished (my dog was not impressed with my hard work!).  

I ended up putting some cardboard feet on my purple Jitterbot so that it wouldn't fall over while it was moving!  Initially I thought I was going to have to cut down the size of the main body but I didn't have to in the end with the addition of the large feet.  My purple Jitterbot spins in circles!  Here is a video:

Here are photos of the finished white, purple and red Jitterbots:

My blue Jitterbot has become quite a challenge and after working on the first three for several hours I hit a road block.  I killed two hobby motors while working on my blue Jitterbot (the last two I had).  I don't have the tools or skills to fix the motors so I will have to go purchase another motor tomorrow.  So my blue Jitterbot is not completely done but here is a photo:

Tomorrow I am hoping to finish up my blue Jitterbot, I will continue with the next phase of my project.  I have started the next part which is the backgrounds for my Jitterbots, but still have a lot of work to do!!