With all the “Love Robots” I’ve been making (see here and here), they where bound to procreate and spawn of a new generation.

Wanting to approach the simplicity of the famous LED Throwies, the name LED Kissies was already lingering in my mind, even before I came up with the concept presented here.

LED Kissies are ”kissing robots” reduced to their essential parts: an LED, a battery, a strong magnet and (optionally) some card with a picture. They are easy and fast to make and pretty low cost.

Here's a short video:

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Step 1: Materials (and Tools)

For a pair of LED Kissies you will need:

2 Blinking LEDs working on 3V. Some blinking LEDs are clearly underpowered on 3V. I used LED's from Opitec (n° 236135).

2 Lithium coin cells delivering 3V each. The thin CR2016 type is easiest to work with, but with some bending of the LED legs, other types can be used to.

2 Strong magnets (Neodymium type). I used 4 mm thick/8 mm diameter ones from Opitec (n° 208305).

A couple of square cm of card stock. Photo card stock/paper works well.

You will probably need scissors and a printer to make suiting pictures. But you could also use ID photos.

Step 2: Assembly

Slide the coin cell in between the LED legs as shown. Make sure the polarity is correct by checking if the LED lights up by pressing the legs to the + and the - side.

Add the card stock to the + side, over the LED leg and keep it in place with the magnet. Check if the + LED leg is well under the magnet. If the LED continues blinking, bend the free leg away from the battery, just enough to break contact.

Step 3: Stabilisation

The LED Kissie can stand upright with the magnet at the bottom, but it's unstable and the kissing movement is not what it should be.

It is better to put the magnet near the top of the battery and fold the card stock at an angle to keep the LED Kissie upright, leaning backwards slightly.

I used the back of the scissors to score the card stock, in order to make clean fold.

Step 4: Attraction Protocol

When you made a second LED Kissie, check if the attraction is there. Reverse one of the magnets if it isn't there.

Indeed LED Kissies change their attraction with a flip of a magnet, but at the occasion of this Ible I would like to propose a “Love Robot Attraction Protocol” (LRAP):

A LED Kissie attracted to violet LED Kissies (i.e. the amber one in this case) should be pointed out as North by a compass.
A LED Kissie attracted to amber LED Kissies (i.e. the violet one in this case), should be pointed out as South by a compass.

I’m not going to link this to gender ;-)

Step 5: Further Evolution

The concept can be implemented without the cardstock by bending the LED legs left and right to provide lateral stabilisation, but it is quite tricky to do. And it is hard not to tip them over when bringing them together to kiss.

But for me a true LED Kissie should have a picture. For the prototypes I used the image of the Instructables Robot printed at a size of 35 mm wide, 45 mm wide. On one I changed the colour to violet before printing (using Inkscape’s Filters, Color, Colorize function).

A pair of LED Kissies can be presented as a greeting card, with the magnets keeping the batteries and LEDs in place and referring to this Ible for instructions. But I wouldn’t simply mail them in an envelope, as the strong magnets are bound to give problems along the way.

I expect the LED Kissies will in turn spawn a new generation of Love Robots, probably showing more hereditary traits of their grand parents again (like laser cut parts and/or ping pong balls). One evolutionary favourable feature would be two magnets next to each other and with reversed polarity. This way all robots following the same (LRAP) will kiss each other (as suggested by Ibles member Ugifer).