[Jeremy Cook] has been playing around with strandbeests for a while, but never had one that walked until he put a motor on it and made it R/C controlled.
These remote controlled strandbeests can’t be too heavy or they have trouble moving. He didn’t want to get too complicated, either. [Jeremy] decided his first idea – hacking a cheap R/C car – wouldn’t work. The motors and AA batteries in these cars are just too heavy. Then he realized he had a broken quadcopter lying around. The motors were all burnt out, but the battery, controller, and driver board still works. On a hunch, he hooked up beefier motors to the front and left rotor control, and found that it worked just fine.
The rest of the work was just coupling it to the mechanism. The mechanism is made of wood and metal tubes. [Jeremy] found that the strandmaus had a tendency to fall down. He figures that’s why the original strandbeests had so many legs.
For his next iteration he wants to try to make it more stable, but for now he’s just having fun seeing his little legged contraption scoot around the floor. Video after the break.
Nah, they can be heavy too. The local hackerspace had a 3cm plywood remote controlled one you could ride on.
U of Louisiana built a strandbeest “Segway” in 2008:
https://youtu.be/JCPlczI3k-c
I’m never as impressed when universities pour stupid amounts of time, money, and effort into things one person could make at home. (for example see just about every university project in ‘soft robotics’ ever)
I am however impressed when one person at home makes something that universities pour stupid amounts of time, money, and effort into.
Making things is the best way to learn, it is why universities pour money in students projects. There is nothing stupid in it.
Wouldn’t that be Strandmuis? Since Strandbeest is a Dutch word after all. Maus is German. ;)
Google translate “Strandbeest” by “beach beast”
That’s a mistranslation, here’s a beach beast…
[REDACTED. OH NOES. NWO. CORPORATIONS. CENSORSHIP. LET’S KEEP OUR JOKES NERDY NOT JUST MEAN. NERDY AND MEAN IS OKAY THOUGH:P ]
I understand and submit this replacement.
http://www.frugal-cafe.com/public_html/frugal-blog/frugal-cafe-blogzone/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/dog-frisbee-beach.jpg
Beach Beast.
Muis? Is that the dutch word for mouse? I’ll admit I kind of put the two words together without much thought, and “maus” sounded cool. Though I see “strand” is also beach in German, so maybe it works!
Nice work. Not all as easy to get all the moving parts to work together as it would seem. I know! Lol. https://hackaday.io/project/8788-remote-control-land-strider This is the one of mine that took a walk around the MRRF 2016 a few weeks ago.
When will we see such a “beast” mowing our grass ? Would it not be great ?
Thanks for the writeup!