A page of photovores and various light seekers. This is one of the more common and "fun" BEAM type robots to build.

Build Date: Jan 19, 2003

A quick little bot to test out an idea for an ultra simple light seeker, the circuit consists of a pair of photodiodes, 74AC245 chip a couple motors, battery and a switch. The performance is surprisingly effective. There is a shot of the underside to show how simple the wiring is. See the electrical circuit Here.

Built from a chunk of 3mm blue sintra and a stainless steel plate, the ball bearing works well as a low friction omnidirectional front skid.

Build Date: March 23, 2001

The core of this mouse bot is the simple and elegant herbie circuit designed by Randy Sergent using a single LM386.  I added a 240 based reverser so that when it bumps something it will back away for a couple of seconds. The body of this is two plates of stainless steel that are silver soldered together, uses a 4.8V Ni-Cad and a pair of Solarbotics RM1's.

Build Date: March 17, 2001

This mouse bot uses a 555 timer to seek light and a 74AC240 based reverser. The motors are directly driven from the output of the 555. The 555 is fairly easy to trick into being a phototrophic device. The circuit for this is here.

Its entertaining watching these mice "learn" about floor level glass windows...

Build Date: Mar, 1999

Very first herbie, built from a circuit on the Solarbotics web site and constructed with parts from the same. I'm still impressed by the simple yet highly effective misuse of that little audio op amp, thanks Randy Sargent!