Balance Bot Buddy!

Sometimes you just need a buddy to keep your whole life in balance, and this one's a quickie! And for the aspiring tight-rope walker, this bot is your new role model. Balancing on fingers, noses, ledges, this bot knows no balancing bounds.

• What: Balance Bot
• Time: ~ 5 minutes to make, 5 minutes to modify
• Cost: 25 cents
• Concepts: Balance, Center of Mass, Rotation
• Materials:
  • 2 wood skewers
  • 1 toothpick
  • 1 cork
  • 2 balls plasticine (any clay will do)
  • 2 googly eyes
  • A wee bit o' hot glue
• Tools:
  • Hot glue gun

This is a wonderful balance toy to make, and than change around, iterate, and learn from! You can do tons of center of mass experiments with this buddy, or just play! You might even be able to make it from the first picture alone.

Step 1: Insert Sticks and Add Clay!

First, insert the two wood skewers so that they are angled down. (You can play around with the position later to get all sorts of different balancing angles).

Next, insert the toothpick on the bottom of the cork facing down.

Then add balls of clay to either side. For the most part, balls about half the volume of a ping-pong ball work great! Experiment to find the best for you.

We need Balance Bot's center of mass to be below the end of th

Step 2: Add a Face and Let It Rip!

Every bot can use a little personality. Googly eyes can make it come to life, and a mouth isn't bad either.

It can lay flat on the table, but this bot is made to spin upright. Let it rip!

Great things to change to get different results include:

• The length of the toothpick (cut it)
• The angle and length of the skewers (cut them), and re-poke them
• The size of the clay balls

Have fun balancing!

Comments

[Jada Durby]

It's so cute!!! I love da little face :3

[Luigi Pizzolito]

Cool!

[Stark Ideas]

Made this with my three-year-old he thought it was the coolest thing ever

[The Oakland Toy Lab]

That is so lurvely to hear. :)

So happy you all did it! If you ever want to get into the super version, instead of skewers you can use dowels and instead of clay use tennis balls, instead of a cork use a block o' wood, and so on. Pretty fun!

[mprice22]

That is so cool. The bots body where you added the face it looks like one of those wine caps. Well that is a cool little project and maybe I will make it

[The Oakland Toy Lab]

That would be mighty, mprice! Send us a photo of your botface if you do!