Bouncy Legs Walking Robot

Walking robot is always attractive to me. I keep challenging myself to design a simple & fun walking mechanism to drive a robot. I found piles of unwanted clear book in the shelf & they are just great for this experiment. My design is inspired by STRANDBEEST of THEO JANSEN. It was amazing to see the STRANDBEEST walking beautifully on the beach.

My aim for this project is to create a new walking mechanism with an dynamic movement using the flexible property of PP plastic sheet.

Materials

tools

-Cut the foam board into 110mm X 50mm

-mark center lines & 2 reference line 5mm from both edges

-hot glue both servos on the foam board

*align driving gear Axel to the centre of the foam board as photo shown

-cut 2pieces of 1mm diameter wires into 150mm

-hot glue then on the foam board as photo shown

-soder the servo socket with the battery connector

* black to black & red to red & you can cut away the signal wire ( signal wire normally in white or yellow)

-connect servos & power supply cable to the receiver

* for my Flysky receiver channel 1 for left servo & channel 2 for right leg & channel for power cable. However, channel arrangement will be a bit difference for different brand of RC transmitter model

-remove clear pages from the clear book

-cut shapes out as photos shown

-4 X long strips ( mark reference points)

-4 X L shape supports

-8 X V supports

-then bend them into shape as photos shown

*us half cut technique to bend the PP sheet which is cut one side & you can bend the other side up.

*Flexibility of PP board vary & you may spend some time to play with the width of the strips. Mine work good on 8mm width & I will try a bid wider my next model

-cut out 12 pieces of 10mm clear rubes

-place a clear tube in the middle of the strip & the L shape support & hot glue them together

-hot glue the V shape support at the pre marked positions as photo shown

-join the end together with hot glue

-now a leg piece is done. Repeat the process to built 3 more of them

-Bend a 1mm wire to shape as shown in photo

-slide the wire into the servo arm & secure with hot glue

-install the leg pieces into the wire

*some bending need to done after the leg in stalled

-slide clear tubes on the V support into the front & rear axels

* you may need to add a little force to deform the legs to get them fit in the axels. But don't worry, it's totally fine!

-place servo arms into the servo driving gears & screw fasten them in place

-insert stopper into each end of the wires

* my stopper is make out of a core out electric cable. It have little fiction which is work great as an easy adjusting stopper

-now you right legs are done & repeat the same process for the left legs

-Install battery & Bind the RC & you are ready to test run it!

-I found hot glue is easily come off from PP specially along the bending area. I use shrink wrap inteads & they work very well.

If you are using 6 channels RC unit as I do, you have a lot of room to add motion features to the robot. My example is to add an moving jaw on channel 4. But of cause you can add features like transforming amor, weapons, extra arm set, rotating head... The fun is unlimited. Hope you enjoy my sharing! Have fun!