Who hasn’t fantasized about riding on a hexapod robot? With these detailed instructions, you very well could be living out your fantasy very soon. As you can see in the video, they opted for connected legs instead of 6 independent ones, so your dreams of riding the dancing Lou Bega bot may have to wait for another day.
[via Hack N Mod]
blank rss feeds of doooooooooom!!
Posted at 7:25 am on Dec 16th, 2008 by spiderwebby
sorry guys, intermittent connection problems here today. It is causing all kinds of issues.
Posted at 7:42 am on Dec 16th, 2008 by Caleb Kraft
nice hack! and simple to built to…
Posted at 8:28 am on Dec 16th, 2008 by adamastor
That’s pretty funny…. I have been drawing plans for my own that’s pedal powered for the past week or so… everything from simple to insane. This has been an encouraging video.
Posted at 9:10 am on Dec 16th, 2008 by Louis II
(also… mine was not a hex, per say… though the one with fewest legs has 6… and the most has 18)
Posted at 9:11 am on Dec 16th, 2008 by Louis II
Meh… it’s not a “real” hexapod in my head, it’s only got one, maybe two degrees of freedom total. Enough to go forward and backward, left and right, but it can’t dynamically change leg height, or any of the other things that give walking robots an advantage. It’s a neat project, but I like “real” hexapods, with independent motors on every leg.
-Taylor
Posted at 10:06 am on Dec 16th, 2008 by Taylor Alexander
Cool and Disapointing at the same time.
When I read “rideable Hexapod” I thought of something like Warhammer 40k Spidertanks (at least i think it was wh40k).
Well yeah, its a hexapod, and its rideable…
Though I would like to see those guys use balljointed Legs and Hydraulics next time. :D
Posted at 11:17 am on Dec 16th, 2008 by nnx
You’ve got that Bruce Lee + MIT look going.
Good stuff on the hexapod. Rubber stoppers on the legs are a must.
Posted at 3:56 pm on Dec 16th, 2008 by MadTiger
Doesn’t look that rideable. Imagine being thrown off !
Posted at 5:36 pm on Dec 16th, 2008 by Sammy
I could see this being easily converted to steampower.
Posted at 7:29 pm on Dec 16th, 2008 by Solenoidclock
ewww! his electronics are groety. He should be driving the motors with PWM from the arduino through a solid state h-bridge or something; the rest of the circuit also leaves a lot to be desired. If he were just going to drive the thing all direct with a joystick and not plan for the future, he could have even gone pure analog with a 556 and that joystick of his. The mechanics are just wonderful though. I hope this guy is an ME.
Posted at 7:50 pm on Dec 16th, 2008 by Solenoidclock
Oh, he is a mechanical engineer. He also learned microcontrollers just this semester, so mad props to him for applying his new knowledge in such an awesome way.
Posted at 7:52 pm on Dec 16th, 2008 by Solenoidclock
yeah it looks like hes loosing alot of traction on one or two of the legs, with some experimenting and pricisely measured rubber plugs for the end of the feet, he might be able to gain some speed, both from even grip as well as not having a lop-sided rotation
Posted at 10:10 pm on Dec 16th, 2008 by Bryan
Being mechanical makes sense, its wierd the things you pick up in peoples speach “high amperage relays” someone with an electronics background would most likely have called them high current relays.
the design is solid and useful, especially for high school classes in a kit form or even just off plans.
I would be interested to hear what the rated payload of this walking frame is.
Posted at 11:19 pm on Dec 16th, 2008 by Apothus
WH40K:
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p186/spi_photo/Irondefiler.jpg
or:
http://www.saguisag.com/photonduck/eradvehicles02.jpg
You all ever hear about the “Kinetic Sculpture Race” in Humboldt, CA, USA?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_sculpture_race
I’ve been thinking of some kind of walker for that… maybe that guy’s wh40k suggestion would work?? heh..
Posted at 7:56 am on Dec 17th, 2008 by Louis II
Heh. If you want to see an eight-legged walking machine that can carry a few hundred pounds, check out the Mondo Spider: http://vimeo.com/1201608 (or http://www.mondospider.com)
Posted at 9:09 pm on Dec 17th, 2008 by Danny Mal
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Posted at 7:10 am on Dec 16th, 2008 by hogiewan