We are making these do-it-yourself recycled material kits. They are like
recycled maker kits which are fun projects that people do that usually have technology and Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) involved in the kit. Find out more at www.gejcutie.wix.com/remakers.

This is the instructions on how to build a remote control car out of recycled electronic pieces. This is for our FLL project for this year because the theme was TrashTrek. We hope you learn more about recycling through this project. Check out our other Instructibles:

https://www.instructables.com/id/Recycled-Water-Bottle-Lantern/

Step 1: Materials

Parts List:

· 1 piece of flat wood 2” X 4”

· 2 motors from CD Roms

· 4 9 volt batteries

· 4 wires 5’ or longer

· 6 wires 10”

· 1 ball point pen case (ink removed)

· 3 Shish Kebab skewers

· 4 bottle caps

· 2 small rubber bands

· 1 sewing bobbin

· Black electrical tape

Tools:

· Hack saw (cut pen case)

· Drill to help cut openings in wood

· Rasp (smooth wood edges)

· Hot Glue Gun

· Wire strippers

· Wire cutters

Step 2: Building the Car

1. Car Base: Take piece of thin wood 2” by 4” and cut a small rectangle near the back to later run the motor drive band through. The opening should be about 1/3 of an inch by 1 inch. Smooth out any rough edges. Optionally if you don’t have a single piece of wood you can glue popsicle sticks together to make the base.

2. Rear Drive Axles: Take an old ball point pen. Cut it into two sections. Each the width of the car. For the rear axle cut the pen half into two sections and mount on either side of the opening for the drive band.

3. Rear Wheels: Use a shish kebab skewer to mount the wheels and sewing bobbin for the drive band. First stick one end of the skewer through one of the bottle cap wheels. Hot glue in place so that it doesn’t slip. Trim excess wood from the outside of the wheel. Thread the skewer through the long end of the drive axle (old pen case from step 2). Thread the axle through the sewing bobbin so that the bobbin is aligned with the opening cut in step 1. Place a small rubber band around the sewing bobbin. It is good to either use two small rubber bands or put a twist in the single band so that there is more friction to make the drive shaft spin. Glue in place so that it does not slip. Mount the second wheel to the skewer, glue, and trim excess wood.

4. Mounting the Drive motor: Take the CD Rom (Hard drive motors can work too) and hot glue it in place so that the motor sprocket is aligned with the rear axle. Test with rubber band to ensure the wheel spin freely with the motor. Do this by connecting the motor to a 9 volt battery.

5. Front Steering Axle: Cut a small hole near the front to allow the steering screw for the front axle to bass through. Cut the old Pen case to the width of the car base. Use another skewer to mount wheels with the ball point pen casing between them. Glue the wheels and trim excess wood.

6. Steering Motor: Mount the steering moto to the top of the car. Ensure the tip of the motor is point down through the base of the car. Clue the steering shaft (the ball point pen) case to the tip of the motor. Test with a 9 volt battering. Motor should cause the wheels to turn. If the wheels are big enough the will stop the shaft from free spinning. If they are too small you may need to mount stops so the wheels only turn a little to help with steering.

7. 5 feet of wire: wire up the motors with positive and negative wires. The wires should be at least 5 feet long. Take a 3rd skewer and mount it like an antenna on the rear of the car frame. Wrap the wires around the skewer. This helps the driver of the car that uses the wired remote keep from tangling the wires up in the wheels.

8. Decorate the car top as desired. We found that the car sometimes needed extra weight to drive. We attached one of the batteries we had stripped the top off of as a weight.

Step 3: Building the Remote

1. First you will need the tops of two 9 volt batteries. This is a good way to recycle parts of old 9 volt batteries. These battery tops will be used to mount the actual batteries that drive the car, sort of a quick attach process. You will need six pieces of wire at least 10” in length. Taking one of the battery tops, attach 2 wires to the positive post. Stripping an inch of wire is good to allow enough to wrap around and tie off. Attach 1 wire to the negative post of the battery top. Do the same thing for the other battery top.

2. Remote control case: Take two empty plastic bottles with caps attached. Cut the top off of one bottle. Cut a hole in the side of the other bottle near the rear and hot glue the extra cap to it. You now have a bottle with a cap on top and a cap on one side.

3. Wiring the power: Take the two battery tops with the wires attached and glue them to the same side of the remote control that you mounted the extra bottle top onto. Have the wirers such that one set runs toward the rear of the bottle where the extra cap was mounted and one is running toward the top of the bottle.

4. Running the wires and gluing them in place: This is a tricky part and we have provided a picture to help. The reason we have two wires on one post and only one wire on the other is that we will be reversing the polarity of the power sent to the motors. This will allow us to move the car forward or in revers and allow us to steer left and right. Run the wires along the outside of the bottle up toward the caps as shown in the diagram.

5. Wiring to the Car: Run the wires from the car up into the bottle being used for the remote. Send the two wires for the drive motor up through the top of the first bottle cap. Send the wires for the drive shaft through the bottle cap mounted to the side of the remote. Have enough excess wire so that you can make contact between these wires to the car and the ones we clude to the bottle for the power.

Add power and go: plug two 9 volt batteries into the batter caps you hot glued in place in step 3. Test the care by turning the bottle caps. When the wires from the car touch the wires from the remote power should flow to the drive motor and the steering motor. By twisting the cap back and forth you change the polarity of