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The War of The Worlds - a tripod robot


New Scientist has published an article on a tripedal robot - it "walks" in a rather unconventional way by swinging its entire body upside-down with each stride.

Have a look - the video is fun to behold.

This may serve as an inspiration for another LEGO walker...
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Eric D. Burdo said…
Very interesting locomotion. I think a big challenge for a NXT version is going to be balance. This bot balances on two legs, while it falls forward. The third leg swing forward to catch it. It then repeats this process.

The video clip (in full size) is definitely worth watching.
Sep 26, 2007, 9:11:00 PM
Rick Rhodes said…
I saw that robot, too.

I'll bet that some NXT sharpie could build a smaller version, if they could find someplace to put the brick. :)

Rick
Sep 26, 2007, 11:40:00 PM
Brian Davis said…
It's not the place to put the NXT brick that is a problem... it's the number of degrees of freedom that the tripods seem to require. You might be able to make one that doesn't turn (always uses the same leg to "swing under"), but then it's just a back and forth motion. Really interesting - I saw these at NI Week '07, actually, although never saw them in action:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=2674824

--
Brian Davis
Sep 27, 2007, 12:08:00 AM
Anonymous said…
I have thought about this design before my self. My thought was to have a rotation ankle like my biped has but just the middle leg. Speaking of more degrees of freedom, anyone hear if the Mmux is coming this year from hytechnic?
Sep 27, 2007, 2:55:00 AM
BlueToothKiwi said…
I think it is doable with one NXT, about 12 PF motors and 7 Gyro / tilt sensors and lots of programming. The biggest challenge I see is coming up with an algorithm that self untangle the wires as it moves forward and how that would be upset if the sequence of the three legs are changed to (say) overcome an obstacle.

I see wires are the biggest obstacle when you do multiple degrees of freedom and when you transform a perfect simulation that conforms to laws of physics to real world.

What do you think?
Sep 27, 2007, 6:12:00 AM
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