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16. If your drone does not fly, here are some troubleshooting steps:
a. Make sure all four propellers are spinning. If one or more propellers are not spinning, double-check that
you do not have any loose wires.
b. Make sure that the propellers are spinning in the correct direction. If you hold the drone upright in your
hand, you should be able to feel the drone blowing air down like a fan. If you feel air blowing up, then one
or more propellers might be spinning backwards. You might need to reverse the direction of a motor's
wires, or swap propellers between motors.
c. Make sure that there is slack in the long wires that connect to the battery pack. If these wires are too tight,
they will pull the drone down.
Racing Bristlebots
Have you ever wanted to build your very own robot from scratch? Bristlebots are a cheap, easy, and fun-to-build
robot made from the head of a toothbrush, a battery, and a small motor. Once completed, they buzz along the
top of a table like bugs. How can you make a bristlebot go faster? In this project, you will build bristlebots from
two different types of toothbrushes, and race them against each other to find out.
Variation
Build one bristlebot with straight bristles and one with slanted bristles, and race them to see which is faster.
Introduction
Have you ever wanted to build your own robot? What about tiny robots that you could race against each other?
In this science project, you will build and race bristlebots, tiny robots built on the head of a toothbrush, like the
ones shown in Figure 1.
The bristlebot uses a small electric motor to move. In order to power the motor, the robot also needs a battery.
When you connect the battery to the motor, you complete an electrical circuit. This makes a tiny weight inside
the motor spin, causing it to vibrate. When the motor vibrates, it causes the robot to shake and buzz along the
tabletop. This is the same type of motor that makes video game controllers and cell phones vibrate.
In this science project, you will build two different bristlebots: one with slanted toothbrush bristles, and one with
straight bristles. Then you will race them against each other to see which one is faster!
Questions:
• What makes the motor vibrate?
• How can a vibrating motor make something move?
• Which do you think will go faster: a bristlebot with straight bristles or one with slanted bristles?
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