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EE > robots

document updated 15 years ago, on Apr 18, 2009

My goal is to build a robot that is 1) as physically simple as possible, 2) can traverse as wide variety of terrain as possible, and 3) allows room for software smarts to make up for its physical simplicity. (I'm terrible at hardware, decent at software)

Once you see how many creative locomotion methods there are, you see that maybe it's not too much of a stretch to do this.

Fixed rolling

Dicycle: one
Sphere: one, two (2b), three, four, five
Gyroscope + wheel: one

Deformable rolling

Balloons/bladders: one
Rigid actuators: one
Flexible actuators: one
With jumping mechanism as well: jollbot

Wheel variants

Serpentine

simple crawler: one
swimming: one

Other

underwater glider

Favorites

leg/wheel/paddle combo
- con: requires 6 motors
- pro: only one motor per "leg", and the 6-motor setup is relatively easy to build
- pro: it seems like smart software can really maximize the use of those "legs" (up to, and including bipedal motion)
- pro: the "legs" can be replaced with different things, from the leg/wheel/paddle combo, to flippers for water, to longer straighter 'legs')
underwater glider
- con: can only go underwater; pro: underwater is a BIG place, with lots of different terrain
- con: can't move very fast; pro: are pretty efficient and can go long distances