Thing a Day 26: Violence and Robotics

For today's thing, I decided to get a motor to whack paper out of the way of a light sensor.

First off, I should give credit to the source. Over on the YouTubes, roboanalogtom put together a wonderful video on analog electronics, which includes a ton of rapid fire schematics and projects that can be done. I ended up sticking with the first one, which is simply making a servo motor responsive to light.

In the first part of the video, you can see me waving my hand and finger over a small light sensor on the breadboard. Each time I do that, shadow falls on the sensor, and the fancy pants cardboard arm of the servo moves.

When I move the cardboard arm over the light sensor, I get a nifty feedback loop: shadow falls over the sensor, which triggers the movement of the arm, which removes the shadow, so the arm moves back, so shadow falls over the sensor, which... If I put an intermediary between the cardboard arm and the light, I get a niftier effect: the cardboard arm will whack things out of the way when they cast a shadow over the sensor.

Violence and robotics -- what could ever go wrong?