Building Robots from Tin Cans

Alexi Devilliers

This guy is intriguing.

Artist website.

I will eschew social commentary regarding this noble effort.

Yeah he uses the cans that he buys to feed the homeless to make art that he sells to get the money to buy the cans of food to feed the homeless to make the art that he sells....it's es circular...

I bought two of these for our boys, 12 and 13 at the time. They were inexpensive and looked to be very interesting.

The 12 YO, who is a Lego genius built his in a half an hour. He's artistic.

The 13 YO, an academic, never put his together.

As typical of this age, the new wore off by the end of the day.

Well worth the price in any case.

What? No link to the (kit maker), or (kit seller)?...

Hi MR. Guest,

There are many different kits available from multiple retailers. This is the one I initially noticed on Amazon.

Have a great day!

Yours may, or may not, be the specific one to which the OP was referring, but thanks for tying up that loose end, in any case...

This is her blog, so I’m going with it is the one that is originally mentioned.

That's the one like I bought. It was originally mention right here on CR4 last November.

It was one of 10 great gifts for Christmas. (I think)

Notice the the drive wheels are oblong and it can be configured to "walk" upright of "crawl" along the floor.

Somewhere, I've got a video but I'm too lazy to post it.

I’ve not heard of these before, but are these cool or what?

I searched greenscience 4m products, these guys make all sorts of kits: windmill generator, several versions of robots, weather station, water filter experiment... and something called a Dynamo Torch! Now we’re talkin! Turns out, torch is in the British sense of the word.

I just ordered the windmill and the weather station.

Cool beans! The boys should get quite a bit of enjoyment out of those. Did you see the Baghdad Battery, powers a calculator? that looked interesting.

I couldn’t help but notice - at least one video of the little robots used a beer can in lieu of a soda can.

Really! C’mon mom, spring for half a rack of Fresca for crying out loud!

I drink bottled beer.

There are always pop cans around. Nana buys them for the boys.

Yes, school starts in 3 weeks. It seems like only yesterday that I was changing the diapers of the kid going into 9th grade.

Seriously, I'm hoping they will learn from these things.

If you’ve managed to pique their curiosities, the return on those projects should be huge.

When I was a kid I wanted to know how everything worked. Testor model planes, I would occasionally acquire one with a kid credit card (begging) and, before I twisted the pieces off of the casting tree I would look up the plane in both sets of encyclopedae in the house - studied for hours available power plants, cockpit layouts, arrester gear layout, paint schemes...

I absolutely thirsted for knowledge. I worked two paper routes (small town weekly, and The GRIT paper, also weekly), mowed yards, shoveled snow, odd jobs of all sorts. Then I used the loot to buy Gilbert’s kits - I was able to score, to the absolute horror of my parents, one of those sets that contained radioactive samples. It went away after a few days, I was advised that I should be more careful with my things. Jeez, I just spent $40 bucks (1966) of my money on this box, I believe I was taking good care of my stuff.

My parent did pretty much everything they could to cool my curiousity.

I had a scholarship offer from Embry-Riddle (Florida), dad killed that for me. I was a candidate for the Westinghouse Prize as a sophomore in high school - attended three test sessions on my bike before browbeating from my father could no longer be tolerated.

So, I also hope from the well of my existence that the boys learn something from the science kits. I also hope that they, someday, can appreciate the fact that you slaked their thirsts as well as you could.

I'm sorry to hear that you were not encouraged to learn and explore.

My biological kids both have degrees, one a teacher and one an engineer. My first wife and I never pushed them, but expected them to go to college. It paid off for them, then.

Times have changed and college may not be the proper path for all these days.

We'll see.

^{(I took stuff apart to see how it worked)}

Re: no encouragement. Well, as long as I’m not bitter about it...

Re: take stuff apart to see how it works. You and I, the principals at LynDoor Industries, are probably the only two guys in the history of the world to do so. This is the peg we can hang our collective hat on, and I make a motion that our corporate motto be amended to reflect this technique of discovery - this could also be a boon for our RED Projects (reverse engineering division).

I will have proposals in hand for consideration when we meet at Kilauea about the Kid Sized Submarine initiative.

Good show! I hear they are actually making land there, contrary to the old saying, "buy land, they're not making it any more."

700 acres of virgin rocks could be a great long term investment.

I'll bring Erica along from the real estate group. She likes to sail.

The good news is that (Mother Nature) is creating some new exposed earthen surface area above sea level...

The bad news is that it will take dozens, if not hundreds, of years for it to cool down enough to become (generally-human-useable)...

Much of the damage to occupied, developed land area was avoidable...

The question remains as to why the (decision-makers) did not cut lava-diversion channels as soon as the eruptions became serious threats...

(i.e. leadership had the time to mitigate the impacts, but they did not have the leaders who could bite the political bullet(s) soon enough to act effectively enough...)

The decision maker is the volcano, not a politician.

Leadership had the time to mitigate? The flow might continue for another two years.

Perhaps a root cause analysis is in order: What happens when you live on an active volcano? Doesn’t take an oversized brain pan to see a possible eventuality here.

This affliction is not unique to Hawaii.

Politicians go where the money takes them. That is never for the public good, but rather toward more development, regardless of the "voice of the people." Developers can afford to hire $300.00 USD/hour, well connected real estate attorneys, while the public can only speak for themselves.

Developers ask for the world (Maximum density , encroachment into pristine public land, no guaranteed water source, flood plains be damned) and then settle for the most they can get. Public comment/protests do not sway development.

Google it.

4M KidzLabs Soda Can Robug Science Kit, Multicolor $8.75 Walmart

I was actually in the Apple store over the weekend and ended up seeing a kid's tech class going on. They were teaching the munchkins how to code and make these sphere robots travel in the room! It was so enlightening to see these kids so jazzed about coding. I am a web designer and know the frustration of the art. It's like a foreign language itself! If you start them early I don't see how this couldn't help them later in life! Love it!

Yeah just wait until they become evil teens and turn your smart house against you....what then?

Lock the back door quick! ...now he's trapped...haha

That is so going on my Christmas list! A robot to terrorize the dogs and cat - priceless!

In the spirit of ''Gog'' ?...