a-pod

2 Articles

Dexterous Hexapod Rocks An Atom Processor

February 10, 2010 by 21 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3ovrT8pWww]

[Matt Bunting’s] hexapod caught Intel’s eye (and their wallet). This coordinated little bot runs Ubuntu on an Atom Z530 processor, popular in netbooks like the Dell Mini 10, and uses a webcam to coordinate and monitor its motion. Intel picked up two of them from [Matt] to exhibit at trade shows. As you can see, the 18 servos provide some gorgeous motion to the beast. It’s no DJ Roomba but it approaches the zen-like perfection that is the A-Pod.

[Thanks Miked]

A-pod

April 7, 2009 by 39 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jyBiECoS3Q]

We know it was just two days ago that we were ranting about the hexapods known as Phoenix, and their creator [Zenta]. In the comments on that post, [Bluehash] pointed us to [Zenta’s] latest creation. This is A-pod. The sheer articulation and believable motion here made this robot worthy of a post all it’s own.  A-pod has a 2 dof “tail” and a 3 dof head with a total of 25 servos to drive it. The addition of the head adds so much character, add some face tracking and it would really blow us away. Well, after it fetched us a beer. He notes that he’s still working on the leg mechanicals, so it doesn’t do much walking yet.