Build Mo-chan, the Adorable Robot Explorer, This Weekend

Robots can be extraordinarily complex, but they don’t need to be. Anyone with a soldering iron and a handful of basic hobbyist-grade components can make a little robot that will entertain them for hours. If you need proof of that fact, look no further than Huy Vector’s latest creation: Mo-chan, the adorable desktop explorer. Chances are that you already have all the parts you need to make one, and with Vector’s guidance, you could assemble it in a weekend.

Mo-chan is a tiny, two-wheeled robot that has been programmed to zoom around and “explore.” Its animated face gives it personality and makes it seem alive. If you want to take the reins, there is a companion app that can be used to manually drive the robot around wirelessly over Wi-Fi.

To build the robot, Vector began by bending thick copper wire to form the frame. He soldered the crossbars together to give the body of the robot added strength. A DC geared motor drives each wheel, with the wheels being nothing more than 65T gears. An ESP32-C3 development board runs the exploration algorithm, processes user inputs, drives the motors (with the help of a motor driver module), and displays animated eyes on a 0.96-inch OLED screen.

There is a 3.7V 14250 lithium battery onboard so that the robot can roam freely. It can be recharged via USB through the included battery charging and protection module. When playtime is over, there is a switch that is used to shut the power off.

Vector programmed the robot using Arduino IDE, and has made the source code freely available. You can also grab the circuit diagram and a printable document that assists in shaping the wire frame of Mo-chan from the same source.