I’m not very mechanical, so here’s a simple robot chassis I built while teaching a robot class at a local school. The top and sides are Radio Shack perf board. This is great because you can easily cut straight lines in it by just cutting along the holes in the grid. The parts:

• The motors are modified RC servos that rotate all the way around.
• The angle brackets came from Home Depot in the cabinent section.
• There is a brace at the rear made of some scrap lumber.
• The front brace is part of an IC tube cut off and hot glued for support.
• You can’t see it, but Home Depot also provided a small caster at the front (or back depending on your point of view; it is mounted on the wooden brace).
• The wheels are actually landing gear for model planes.
• The screws at the top are holding a 4xAA battery holder under the chassis and a 9V battery clip. The 9V battery runs the computer and the AA batteries run the motors.
• The breadboard is secured with doublestick tape. That’s an APP-II running the monster.

If I can make this, anyone can make it. You can connect a Basic Stamp or just about any old processor to the breadboard. Plenty of room to hook up other things too. Let me know if you build anything similar.