OK. So, in this video, we're going
to take our five volt motors, and we're going to
build some motor mounts using Popsicle sticks. The Popsicle sticks
are going to allow us to connect the motors
together, make sure they're lined up straight and
hold them in place, and they're also
going to give us a way to attach our batteries. Now we're going to
measure the distance. It looks like we need
about 2 and 1/2 inches. The Popsicle sticks need to be
about 2 and 1/2 inches long, and we can just trim
the Popsicle stick down using that nipper
pliers that we've got. And so it'll be a really
quick job to trim that. And so once it's 2
and 1/2 inches long, we'll cut another
piece the exact same. And those are going to allow
us to connect our motors and, like I said, keep
everything lined up. So those are going to
be our motor mounts. The Popsicle sticks
are kind of nice too because the hot glue doesn't
cool right away on it. It takes it a second, so it
gives us a little bit of time to position everything. If you put the hot glue
right on the motor, it will cool right
away, and sometimes it's hard to readjust things or to
line things up if you need to. So we're just going to trim the
edge of that Popsicle stick off there. Make sure it's nice and clean. And we want to, again, make sure
that our motors are lined up perfectly straight. So we're just positioning
that Popsicle stick on top to make sure everything
is the way it needs to be. Now it's important that
the Popsicle stick does not stick out past the
edge of the motor. If it does, you're going to have
some trouble getting the wheel to turn. So the motors are
actually magnetic, and they're attracted
to the metal ruler. So the ruler is actually
holding the motors in place. Now you can see the two contacts
there that I just pointed out. You want to make sure
those are facing down. That's going to be really
important because if those are facing up when you
connect the Popsicle stick, you won't be able
to wire the motor, so you'll have to take
the Popsicle stick off. So we're going to put the hot
glue on the Popsicle stick, not on the motors, again,
because it gives us just a little bit more time
for the hot glue to cool. And then we'll flip the
Popsicle stick over, and we'll press it in place. Now be a little careful here
because the hot glue is hot, and it can burn your fingers
if it gets on it really quick. But you should be fine. Again, make sure the motors
are lined up against the ruler, and if they are, then you
should have a nice straight line and the motor should
be perfectly lined up. It's important to use a metal
ruler because it does attract the motors and it will
hold them in place. Specifically a steel
ruler not just-- an aluminum ruler
won't do that obviously because it's not magnetic. So we're trimming our wires
down to about a 6-inch length. We'll need four 6-inch wires. We'll need four, two red
ones and two black ones. And then we're going to strip
the ends off of the wires. And just take about
a quarter of an inch of the insulation off the end. And we're going to use
our needle-nose pliers and twist those wires in a loop. And then we're going to just
bend that loop slightly. And the reason we want to
bend that loop slightly is that it's going to help
it to stick into the motor. The motor has a
little connection that will allow us to--
that's going to basically grab that wire and hold it in place. But we kind of want to make
sure that it holds it in place. So when we push the wire in,
it should fit pretty snugly. So that one didn't
fit too snugly, so we're pulling it out and
going to adjust that loop so that it pushes against--
There's a little metal tab on the motor. And we want to make sure
that melt tab grabs that wire and holds it in place. It should be pretty snug. You might even want
to have it snug enough that you can push the-- you
can use the small screwdriver to push it in place because you
don't want the wires to fall out obviously. So we're going to just
repeat the same thing again for the other side. OK, so once we've got
both wires connected we're going to
take some hot glue and we'll repeat the same step
that we did for the Popsicle stick on the other side. And this is just going to help
to hold the motors together and keep those wires in place. So we want to push
that down, and we'll hold it on there
for a few minutes until it is completely hardened. Make sure that the hot glue has
turned a milky color before you let go of it, otherwise it
won't be totally in place. And you want to make sure you
push down pretty hard on that to get it to line up right. OK, so now we're going
to take our batteries and we're going to
fit them in place. So we'll take our
battery protectors off. And we want the two
batteries to line up kind of in the center of the
motors, like that. And we need them to
line up so that they-- If the batteries are
sort of pushed off to one side or another, the
weight won't be balanced as evenly and so the bot
won't move as smoothly. OK, so that's what
it should look like. We should have
one battery facing one direction and the other
facing the other direction. And so what we're
going to do is-- it's important that all
of the different parts of are flat on the table. So you want to make
sure everything is pushed down
flat on the table. So this is going
to mean that it's really important that those
motors were lined up right. Because if they're not,
they won't sit flat and your wheels won't be true
when you turn your bot on. OK, so we're going to put some
hot glue on our Popsicle stick, and we're going to go
about an inch and a half long there with
our hot glue bead. And we want to make sure
that hot glue bead is in the center of
that Popsicle stick. And once we've
got that lined up, we want to make sure
that everything is flat. And we'll push our
battery against it, and we'll squeeze all
of the different parts together once it's lined up. There we go. So we can just give it
a good, hard squeeze and make sure everything
is flat and pushed down. Make sure that the
motors aren't up at an angle and that the
batteries not up at an angle. We want everything
perfectly flush and flat. And it's easy to do it
wrong, but the good thing about hot glue is you can always
pop the stuff apart and redo it if you need to. So, again, we're going to do the
other side the exact same way. We'll put about an inch and
half bead of a hot glue, and we want that right in the
center of our Popsicle stick. Then, again, we're going
to try and make sure that that battery is lined
up right in the center of our motors, directly
across from the other battery. We'll squeeze it together. Squeeze everything together
and make sure everything is pushed down. If you have a partner, you
can have the partner make sure that the batteries
and the motors are all pushed flat
against the table. Really important that
they are flat, again, because it's going to
make it so much easier to attach the double stick
tape from the bottom of the tap light to the top
of the batteries. OK. So that is what our
motor mount and battery assembly should look like.