Building A Strandbeest

flexing-jansen-mechanism

[Jeremy] may have given up on his big hexapod project, but that doesn’t mean he’s out of the world of legged robots just yet. He’s embarked on another project, much more elegant and beautiful than a simple hexapod. This time, he’s building a Strandbeest, the same machine designed by walking machine extraordinaire [Theo Jansen].

Coming up with the correct lengths and joints of a Strandbeest leg linkage isn’t something you can just pull out of your head, so after [Jeremy] found the inspiration for his new project he dug into the related literature on Strandbeest legs. He found the work of [Dominique Studer] and set to work making his own mechanical legs.

Right now, [Jeremy] has a prototype of the Strandbeest leg linkage made out of wood. It still needs a little bit of work, but soon enough there will be a PVC pipe Mountainbeest trolling the backwoods near [Jeremy]’s house.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0T-Eg2_ofg8&w=520]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c37VXSlFh0A&w=520]

8 thoughts on “Building A Strandbeest

  1. What’s missing with these is the ability to alter leg length and stride to handle rough terrain and making turns. A windblown crawler that moves smoothly in a straight line on a flat beach is neat. A windblown crawler that can also walk over obstacles and tack upwind would be amazing.

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