All parts are from RadioShack. Photo ca. August, 2012.
This is a Herbie-style BEAM photovore with a reversing relay. But instead of a bump switch, the “retreat” reflex is triggered by a sharp, loud sound like a clap. It was developed for MAKE’s RadioShack “Weekend Projects” campaign in the summer of 2012; the prompt specified a project that responded to both light and sound. “MSE” was intended to nod at “Mousey the Junkbot,” Gareth Branwyn’s famous Herbie-style build from “The Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Building Robots” (and MAKE Vol 06). MSE-5 was by most standards a failure, coming in three weeks past deadline and well over budget due to persistent line noise problems that would cause the reversing relay to trigger over and over again. I did eventually iron out the bugs, but the final build was much too complicated and never saw use. Still, the finished ‘bot turned out pretty sharp-looking, and I learned a heckuva lot about electronics in a very short time.
Though I can’t necessarily recommend that anyone should build it as-written, a complete PDF of the unpublished Make: Projects MSE-5 tutorial is available at the link below.