GUEST: Wolfgang Spider Robot by Steve Wilson

Submitted by Jam on October 29, 2010 - 6:37pm

It’s GUESTRAVAGANZA! This is a guest post by Steve Wilson of Ohio State University.

I am a senior mechanical engineering student at Ohio State currently and will be graduating in the spring. My girlfriend showed me Wasted Talent a few years ago and I've been reading ever since.

Solidworks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGuswmXQ8JI&feature=related

Here is a link to a video of my kinematics and dynamics of machinery project that I did this past spring. We decided to go well beyond what we needed and eventually ended up with an eight legged, radio controlled, walking robot. As far as the engineering goes, we used analytical linkage analysis (basically a bunch of vector loops) which I was able to program into Matlab and generate the foot location and an animation of the linkage. There was also a Solidworks model and animation of the mechanism. All of the acrylic was cut with a CNC LASER cutter. The drive system was taken directly out of an RC tank so that we had separate control of both sides to enable us to turn.

Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRV4az4QhQI

Group Members:
Rick "Wolfgang" Geary
Patricia Ham
Josh Horton
Joe Polly
Steve Wilson

Thanks for taking your time to look at this!

Steve Wilson

Jam: Wow, way to go TEAM- and thanks Steve for sending this in! Way more ambitious than any of my undergrad projects, I can tell you that much.

Comments

Red

Submitted by Red on November 8, 2010 - 11:34am.

Badass!

The Solidworks model shows multiple holes on the drive gears (you probably have a better name for these). Does the spider go faster/climb larger obstacles if you connect to these rather than one on the periphery?

jthzero

Submitted by jthzero on November 12, 2010 - 12:45am.

Thanks, we were proud of the Wolfgang. No, we really do not have a better name for the holes if I recall correctly (sorry). The other holes were partly made for aesthetics and a plan B in case of interference.