BristleMouse

A simple BristleBot in shape of a mouse or rat. We made this as part of a Harry Potter themed birthday party, where the kids could make their own Scabbers pet. The project requires soldering and the use of hot glue, therefore adults are needed for assistance and supervision.

I printed this without support but with activated bridge settings. This resulted in surfaces, where single strings did not connect properly to the rest of the print. This was ok for me, because I only needed those surfaces for the toothbrush heads to be glued on with some hot glue.

Required materials:

electronics:

• battery holder for a single AAA Battery
• a small vibration motor
• a small switch
• some wires nose:
• pink sponge rubber
• white thread as whiskers ears:
• pink paper
• colored paper other:
• three toothbrushes
• pink wool as tail
• acrylic paint
• googly eyes

Steps:

• Paint the mouse with the acrylic paint
• Solder battery holder, switch and vibration motor together. Make sure everything works before proceeding
• Use hot glue to glue the switch and the motor to each side of the battery holder. Make sure, switch and motor are still working. You might want to glue the motor inclined so it will rotate freely once put into the mouse
• Now glue the battery holder into the mouse with hot glue. Again make sure, everything works.
• Cut the heads off of the toothbrushes and glue them at the bottom of the mouse
• Now bend the bristles backwards to enable a forward movement of the bristle bot
• Cut a small triangle of the pink sponge rubber for a nose. Glue some strings of the white thread to the nose and glue it to the head of the mouse.
• Cut two circles of the pink paper as inside of the ears.
• Glue those circles to the colored paper and cut those circles out with a small margin
• Now make one cut to the center of the circles
• Overlap the edges of the cuts and glue them together, to give the ears a three dimensional shape
• Now you can glue the ears to the head of the mouse
• Glue the googly eyes to the head of the mouse
• Take some pink wool and glue it to the mouse as tail