Servo - August 2014

VEX robot (which we called Oedipus RHex) started to undulate across the floor. The gear train appeared to have the perfect amount of torque to move the bot around, even if the gait was nowhere as smooth as the OutRunner (or Kod*Lab's RHex, for that matter).

We positioned Oedipus RHex at the start of our obstacle course. The bot climbed over the thinner physics textbooks like a nimble animal (or perhaps tipsy was more like it), negotiating uneven terrain in the wild. When it reached the thick calculus textbook, it sailed over the volume of differential equations and integrals like many a newly minted undergrad only wished they could.

Encouraged by the success of Oedipus RHex, we equipped the Scribbler with two of the legs to see if it might fare better than it did the first time. Despite the Scribbler's lower torque, the legs allowed it to at least climb over the first obstacle. Not much, but an improvement nonetheless. Overall, we were very amused by the gaits achieved by the robots.

With our home-hacked version of RHex motion, we learned that it takes more than a torque heavy drive train and some legs to make a walking robot — even if the walking you're referring to is merely the recreation of a simple mechanical model for the efficiencies of an animal's gait. The Scribbler demonstrated that it takes more than just slapping some legs onto rotary motors to make a walker. You also need torque to overcome the momentum created by the legs.

Oedipus RHex was better able to surmount obstacles with its new appendages, but our design did not seem to take great advantages of the efficiencies of a SLIP. Our As we've shown here, you don't necessarily need a university lab or Kickstarter funding to build a fun robot that draws inspiration from biological systems and sophisticated mechanical models. As always, the only thing you need is your imagination and the curiosity to go out and build something SV