2022 Sci-Fi Contest: Motorized AT-AT Walker Gets Around With Servos

The AT-AT Walker was one of the more fearsome weapons of the Star Wars universe, even if it was incredibly slow and vulnerable to getting tangled up in Rebel tow cables. However, you can build your own small-scale example using servos for propulsion, as [Luke J. Barker] ably demonstrates.

Taking off the outer shell reveals the servo motors driving the leg linkages.

The build is a remix of the motorized AT-AT from [LtDan] on Thingiverse, originally powered by a 90 rpm DC gearmotor. [Luke] remixed the design, setting it up to be driven by eight servomotors instead. They’re controlled from a SparkFun RedBoard Edge, an Arduino-compatible microcontroller board that fits rather neatly inside the AT-AT shell.

Programmed with a simple sine-wave walk cycle, the AT-AT ambles along in a ponderous manner. It’s altogether very much like the real fictitious thing, albeit without the scorching sizzle of blaster fire ringing out across a frozen plain.

Quadruped vehicles never really caught on for military use, but that’s not to say nobody ever tried. Video after the break.

6 thoughts on “2022 Sci-Fi Contest: Motorized AT-AT Walker Gets Around With Servos

    1. They spent a fortune developing the gait controller software and didn’t want all that money to go to waste. It’s just like the impala in supernatural, the total improbability of driving the same piece of junk car for 16 years and somehow it still looks the same and can make regular cross country trips with no maintenance. My dad had the same car and it was in the shop all the time.

    2. Same as most WWII German tanks, however like them it worth pointing out its not entirely meritless design, in the right place used the right way they both have some functionality.

      Slow though it is it isn’t very vulnerable, at least to conventional weaponry, but an implausibly strong and long winch, oh boy is it in trouble…

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