Documentation

Background:
Many, many moons ago, Randy Sargent was in a pickle. Not literally (yuck), but more of an
uncomfortable position of not having a robot to bring to the 1996 Seattle Robothon “Line Follower”
contest.
Would you believe the robot he cobbled up out of spare parts the night before the competition
actually won?!?
No, neither would we.
It actually ended up in last place, but it still impressed the heck out of everybody with how simple
and effective it was. And by using a chip in a very bizarre way, it has very high “cool-
hack” scores. The “Herbie” circuit was then released on the Web, and Randy’s
super-simple robot was being built all over the world. It’s been featured in
“Make” Magazine, and the books “Absolute Beginners Guide to Building
Robots”, and “Junkbots, Bugbots, and Bots on Wheels”. Being very simple,
quick, and affordable, “Herbie” continues to be a favorite project for junkbot
builders.
Ten years after its initial public release, Solarbotics is pleased to bring you
“Herbie the Mousebot”. We’ve tweaked Randy’s original design to include a
“backup!” function, and be a light-follower rather than line-follower. We’ve
even included the ability for several Herbies to play “Chase your Tail”! We
hope you have as much fun building Herbie
the Mousebot as we did designing it.
And what ever happened to Herbie inventor,
Randy Sargent? He’s gone from MIT’s
Media Lab to NASA, and then Carnegie
Mellon University. It’s really too bad he
hasn’t done something to top the “Herbie”...
Solarbotics has a portion of Herbie sales going to the KISS
Institute for Practical Robotics, which is a not-for-profit
organization that uses educational robotics programs to actively
engage students in science, technology, engineering, math, and
project management. It’s also one of many educational projects
Randy is involved with.
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Solarbotics Herbie the Mousebot