See This Slick RC Strandbeest Zip Around

January 3, 2018 by Donald Papp 8 Comments

Bevel gears used to mount motors vertically.

Theo Jansen’s Strandbeest design is a favorite and for good reason; the gliding gait is mesmerizing and this RC version by [tosjduenfs] is wonderful to behold. Back in 2015 the project first appeared on Thingiverse, and was quietly updated last year with a zip file containing the full assembly details.

All Strandbeest projects — especially steerable ones — are notable because building one is never a matter of simply scaling parts up or down. For one thing, the classic Strandbeest design doesn’t provide any means of steering. Also, while motorizing the system is simple in concept it’s less so in practice; there’s no obvious or convenient spot to actually mount a motor in a Strandbeest. In this project bevel gears are used to mount the motors vertically in a central area, and the left and right sides are driven independently like a tank. A motor driver that accepts RC signals allows the use of an off the shelf RC transmitter and receiver to control the unit. There is a wonderful video of the machine zipping around smoothly, embedded below.

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Explore Venus With A Strandbeest Rover

August 11, 2017 by John Baichtal 72 Comments

There’s a little problem with sending drones to Venus: it’s too hostile for electronics; the temperature averages 867 °F and the pressure at sea level is 90 atmospheres. The world duration record is 2 hours and 7 minutes, courtesy of Russia’s Venera 13 probe. To tackle the problem, JPL has created a concept for AREE, a mechanical robot designed to survive in that environment.

AREE consists of a Strandbeest configuration of multiple legs with a monster fan propelling it, and one can imagine it creeping over the Venusian landscape. While its propulsion system might be handled by the Strandbeest mechanism, it will still have to navigate and transmit data. We’re not sure how a mechanical radio wave might work–maybe like those propeller arrow-cutters that [Dain of the Iron Hills] busts out in movie version of the Hobbit? Chemical rockets that somehow don’t spontaneously ignite? Or maybe it can just “transfer all energy to life support” and AC the heck out of the radio.

We’re space nerds here at Hackaday–check out our piece about NASA employees’ talks at the 2016 Hackaday Superconference and our extracurricular tour of JPL.

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Hackaday Prize Entry: Octo, The Robotic Walker

July 6, 2017 by Donald Papp 6 Comments

Walkers like the Strandbeest are favorites due in part to their smooth design and fluid motion, but [Leandro] is going a slightly different way with Octo, an octopodal platform for exploring rough terrain. Octo is based on the Klann linkage which was developed in 1994 and intended to act as an alternative to wheels because of its ability to deal with rough terrain. [Leandro] made a small proof of concept out of soldered brass and liked the results. The next version will be larger, made out of aluminum and steel, and capable of carrying a payload.

The Strandbeest and Octo have a lot in common but differ in a few significant ways. Jansen’s linkage (which the Strandbeest uses) uses eight links per leg and requires relatively flat terrain. The Klann linkage used by Octo needs only six links per leg, and has the ability to deal with rougher ground.

[Leandro] didn’t just cut some parts out from a file found online; the brass proof of concept was drawn up based on an animation of a Klann linkage. For the next version, [Leandro] used a simulator to determine an optimal linkage design, aiming for one with a gait that wasn’t too flat, and maximized vertical rise of the leg to aid in clearing obstacles.

We’ve seen the Klann linkage before in a LEGO Spider-bot. We’re delighted to see [Leandro]’s Octo in the ring for the Wheels, wings, and walkers category of The Hackaday Prize.

Watch The ClearWalker Light Up And Dip Its Toes

June 1, 2017 by Donald Papp 10 Comments

[Jeremy Cook]’s latest take on the Strandbeest, the ClearWalker, is ready to roll! He’s been at work on this project for a while, and walks us through the electronics and control system as well as final assembly tweaks. The ClearWalker is fully controllable and includes a pan and tilt camera as well as programmable LED segments, and even a tail.

When we last saw [Jeremy] at work on this design, it wasn’t yet functional. He showed us all the important design and assembly details that went into creating a motorized polycarbonate version of [Theo Jansen’s] classic Strandbeest design; there’s far more to the process than simply scaling parts up or down. Happily, [Jeremy] is able to show off the crystal clear beauty in his photo gallery as well as a new video, embedded below.

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Strandbeest Not Fooling Anyone — We See Right Through It

March 15, 2017 by Mike Szczys 8 Comments

This Strandbeest is ready for the security line at a security-conscious high school. Like see-though backpacks, its clear polycarbonate parts let you see everything that goes into the quirky locomotion mechanism. Despite having multiple legs, if you analyze the movement of a Strandbeest it actually moves like a wheel.

For us, it’s the narrated fabrication video found below that makes this build really interesting. Hackaday alum [Jeremy Cook] has been building different versions of [Theo Jansen’s] Strandbeest for years now. Strandmaus was a small walker controlled by a tiny quadcopter, and MountainBeest was a huge (and heavy) undertaking. Both were made out of wood. This time around [Jeremy] ordered his polycarbonate parts already cut to match his design. But it’s hardly a walk on the beach to make his way to final assembly.

The holes to accept the hardware weren’t quite large enough and he had to ream them out to bring everything together. We enjoyed seeing him build a jig to hold the spacers for reaming. And his tip on using an offset roll pin to secure the drive gear to the motor shaft is something we’ll keep in mind.

In the end, things don’t go well. He had machined out a motor coupling and it ends up being too weak for the torque driving the legs. Having grown up watching [Norm Abram] build furniture (and houses) without a single blown cut or torn-out end grain this is a nice dose of reality. It’s not how perfect you can be with each step, it’s how able you are to foresee problems and correct them when encountered.

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A Strandbeest Bicycle

June 30, 2016 by Jenny List 20 Comments

“If you’re asking ‘why,’ you don’t get it.” So said [JP] when he told us about his strandbeest bicycle build. After all, who in their right mind would graft a complex multi-leg mechanical walking mechanism to the rear end of a perfectly good bicycle? But to expand on his sentiment, to not understand his creation is to miss the whole essence of our movement. Sometimes you just have to make something, because you can.

3D printed strandbeest bike proof of concept

If you aren’t familiar with the strandbeest, it is the creation of Dutch artist [Theo Jansen]. Complex skeletal walking machines powered by the wind, that in the case of [Jansen]’s machines autonomously roam the beaches of the Netherlands. Hence the name, from Dutch: “Beach beast”.

[JP]’s strandbeest bike came together over 8 months of hard work. It started with a conceptual CAD design and 3D print, and progressed through many iterations of fine-tuning the over 400 parts required to put four legs on the back of a bicycle frame. It’s an impressive achievement and it is fully rideable, though we suspect we won’t be seeing it at the Tour de France any time soon.

He’s posted several videos of the bike in action, you can see one of them below the break.

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Strandmaus, Small R/C Strandbeest

April 11, 2016 by Gerrit Coetzee 12 Comments

[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.

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