If you look closely, you’ll see that Pikachu isn’t sporting a pair of funky throwing stars, but is actually suspended between there. Our furry friend is just putting a happy face on this carpet roving robot called the Carpet Monkey V5. It’s been in the works for years, and this is just one more stop in the prototyping process as the development of version 6 is already under way.
The project is a testament to what can be accomplished using all of the design tools at your disposal. The motive mechanism was conceived as a cross between the qualities of legs and the ease of using wheels. Each of the appendages are covered with strategically placed points meant to grab onto carpet, and allow the ‘wheel’ to grip objects as the machine vaults over them. You can see that each has a spring mechanism to further facilitate gripping with each turn of the axle. This seems to go far beyond what usually comes out of hobby robotics, and we think that’s a great thing!
After the break there’s a video showing how all the parts of these grippers are assembled. See the bot cruising around the room at about 3 minutes in.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrFenpbTKbg&w=470]
[via Build Lounge]
wheels.
wont work.
That is cool. Those spring loaded legwheels are certainly better for bumpy or uneven ground like on the moon.
oh come on, I wanted to see the electric rat move!
The Isle of Man would love this design because it resembles a robotic version of their flag.
Great idea. I never thought of doing it that way. I guess that’s good.
If you modified the legs in the right way, you could make the legs spin in place to build up a static charge. That would give Pikachu some attack power!
Lol i saw the title of this post on twitter and thought it’ll be something about esd on winter days^^
damn sh…
I began working on this kind of wheels some years ago but never gone further than a drawing and principle
thank’s now i have something to scream about in my nightmares :P
Very similar to Whegs (specifically mini-whegs, due to the lack of the torsion-hub): http://biorobots.cwru.edu/projects/whegs/
These are cool, and kudos to him for putting an idea in motion. If I remember correctly, these resemble the legs on the robot from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. The piece of workout equipment that grew legs and destroyed everything.
Does it work on stairs?
Wow…in a video that lasts 4:42 nothing but assembly played for 3:14, that, like, took forever. nice idea, though.
If the chassis was a bit heavier I imagine the springs would come into their own and smooth the movement out a bit.
very interesting design. In addition to carpets, this design would work great on ice, dirt, wet surfaces, and many others where grip is difficult to achieve with a wheel design. Of course the trade off is lower efficiency than standard wheels. The spring design is very clever, but more tension will be required for heavier loads.