Mini Raspberry Pi robots Pica and Dot

Dot is the latest creation by maker Kaisar who has been progressively creating ever tinier robots for the best part of a year. He began by introducing CutieBot using a Raspberry Pi Zero computer in June 2021. He followed it up last November with Pica, based around a Raspberry Pi Pico development board.

Pica was born almost by accident. “I’d bought a few 6 mm geared motors about a year ago and, when I was sorting some parts on a Sunday morning, I found a Raspberry Pi Pico board and the motors were on the table at the same time,” Kaisar says. “Some combination of neurons fired in my brain and the idea of Pica was born.”

This effort used two motors, a DRV8833 motor driver, and a 70 mAh lithium-polymer battery. It moved along on three 8 mm wooden beads acting as wheels. To make it as small as possible, Kaisar decided to saw away Raspberry Pi Pico’s lower section.

Raspberry Pi robot

““I just wanted to make a smaller version of Pica utilising the Tiny 2040 board,” he says. Given the Tiny 2040 is roughly the size of a postage stamp, he could confidently claim on social media to have made the smallest Raspberry Pi robot in the world. This was Dot.”

“The initial plan was to have the same DRV8833 motor driver and 6 mm motors,” he reveals. “But because of the much smaller size of the Tiny 2040, it was a little tricky to find room for the motor driver and still maintain the low profile and cuteness of the robot. Then I had the idea of measuring the motor current to see if they can be used without a motor driver.”

For more information on all the tiny Rasberry Pi robots Kaisar has created jump over to the official Raspberry Pi MagPi website by following the link below. Also don’t forget to download the latest issue of the official Raspberry Pi MagPi magazine which is now available to download for free or purchase from your local bookstore.

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