Builder extraordinaire and Hackaday alum [Jeremy] was asked by a friend about “doing something really crazy” for his local Makerfaire this year. That Makerfaire clock is ticking down, and not wanting to build awesome from scratch, referred his friend to a few of the temporarily shelved projects from the last year. The winning incomplete build was the Mountainbeest, a four-legged mechanical walker inspired by [Theo Jansen]’s Strandbeest.
We’ve seen the beginnings of the Mountainbeest before, starting with [Jeremy] building the linkages for one leg. This build turned into two legs and now it’s a full-on quadruped, theoretically capable of rambling over the lush mountains in [Jeremy]’s backyard.
The plan now is for [Jeremy] to get is Beest walking with the help of windshield wiper motors left over from a failed hexapod build. He’s not ging all the details yet, but it looks like the power train will be made out of bike parts. Video of the current state of the project below.
Hrm, I wonder how much more efficient it is over Theo Jansen’s design(didnt he use a computer to calculate the best design over many different revisions?)
Ha, I’d guess it’s less efficient. The linkage dimensions are very close, so hopefully mine’s not too far off.
Jansen’s designs are meant to run off wind power, though, while this one has motors; they have to be significantly more efficient to move at all without motors.
The computer was for genetic algorithms…
“Builder extraordinaire” – well thanks for that, and thanks for the writeup! I’ve started experimenting with the motor/bike parts, so hopefully I’ll get a working ‘Beest soon!
Four legs aren’t enough. It’ll fall over. You need enough legs so that there’s always at least three points of contact with the ground at the same level.
Or you need it to be able to move fast enough that inertia keeps it up, like any fast moving four legged animal.
I want to see one of these sturdy enough to ride, and able to steer. Steering is a feature I’ve yet to see in any of Theo Jansen’s or ones built by other people.
Does this qualify? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCPlczI3k-c
Featured on hackaday a long while back.