Solar Power Smart Head
 

Components:
37x33 5.5 volt solar panel
5.5 volt .047F capacitor
74HC240
1381L voltage trigger
Escap 16 DC motor



 Performance:
            Current Consumption: less than .5 ma  while head is locked
            LDR Sensitivity: can see a white piece of paper 20-30 cm away

Obervations:
            This is currently my favorite bot. It's great for at the office. It performs very well under my 50 watt halogen desk lamp, happily blinking away beckoning people to come close to it so it can look at them.The LDRs are very sensitive to different brightnesses around it. When I was carrying it into work the other day, it was looking at each bright thing that I walked by....it looked very alive.
 
Construction:
            I made short heat-shrink cowls for the LDRs, to shield them from direct light. If they aren't shielded, they cause too big of a current drain, which makes the bot less active.

More info to come!
 
 

See it in action:
psh.mov
220k quicktime