Reuben Brewer, like every parent, strives to be cool to his kids. But this robotics fanatic, who works in Silicon Valley developing super serious projects that solve extremely difficult problems, has taught robotic-design at Stanford University, and is a mad scientist in his garage during his spare time, sees every opportunity to be cool to his kids as a chance to test out one of his crazy ideas.

So, when his daughter wanted to get her ears pierced, he decided he’d also get his ears pierced. But not in the usual manner. Instead of one piercing in his earlobe, he sat down at his computer and drafted up a 3D-design of something he’s been thinking about for a while: an ear-cleaning robot. Yes, you read that right, a small robot that would hide behind his ear and use Piezo Motion motors to safely insert a Q-tip into his ear, gently rotate it to clean, and then retract for disposal.

“I’ve tried the RAS motors from Piezo Motion, and I love them! They’ve got a very respectable torque and have a great price compared to alternative and bulkier traditional motors. In the past, when I was in grad school, the prices for piezoelectric motors were prohibitively high. But Piezo Motion motors are so affordable. I can use them at work, in the classroom, and to make fun projects like the ear-cleaning robot in my garage – impressing my daughter at the same time.”

The challenge was, how would he attach this mini robot to his ear? He came up with a triangular pattern of three attachment points for his ear-cleaning robot. Those would be the pierce points he’d get with his daughter. With the studs in place, next up is to put together the robot and run some tests. We’ll be following Reuben as he progresses on the development of his ear-cleaning robot. Check out Reuben’s work at https://www.reubotics.com/.

Do you have a piezo motor project you’re working on that you’d like to share with us?

Please contact me at [email protected] and let me know.