Shitty Robot

Quick-and-dirty, rough-and-ready. I came up with an ugly and ridiculous-looking contraption that the Queen of shitty robots herself might approve of.

Here was the problem: where I live, there is only one switch to control the light in the staircase leading to the basement. You turn the light on before going downstairs. And it stays on until you come back upstairs, since there is no way to turn it off from below. What a waste of energy! Especially when people spend hours in the basement (don't ask)! It upsets me. I don't own the house, so I can't modify the wiring. The landlord is not keen on upgrading the place.

I knew what I had to do. To devise a clunky, inelegant solution to a simple problem. A remotely operated arm that flips the switch on and off. I thought of using a servomotor and a microcontroller. I also wanted to use an old TV remote control... but alas, it wouldn't work from downstairs (Infrared communications usually require a line-of-sight path). So I went for radio signals instead.

That's when the gods of serendipity smiled on me. I had ordered an RC cat toy for a different project of mine (More on that later). When I received the $5 gizmo, I realized that making turns is not an option: you can only drive straight and back. Boo. Silver lining: cheap RC parts!

The not-so-little bugger.

Then everything fell into place fast. I did not change any of the electronics, just removed some plastic things and added two lollipop sticks, one rubber door stop, one tea box, zip ties, the obligatory duct tape. Done.