My vote is for a Phoenix like OCTOPOD!!!
A robot dog sounds like a great idea.
A snake would be so cool! I prefer this one because it can move in 3D. But considering the amount of really strong servo’s you’ll need I think it’s going to be very expensive. Also IK should be VERY hard! I’ve seen some movies about how snakes move on land and in water. It would be really cool to try it!
Xan
Lynxmotion should do a LYNX!!!
I don’t mean your standard quad, I’m talking 'bout the next level! Now that we have a Hex that moves basically like a Hex (insect), I think a radically redesigned Cat-Quad is in order. Something that can reflect the sinuous fluid nature of cat movement.
Wasn’t this the same sort of challenge that confronted Hex builders? Now that accelerometers and servos have become smaller and more powerful we should be able to leverage our collective knowledge and work towards getting the Quad gait engine up to par with the Hex.
This isn’t beyond the talent of some of us (us?..) If the Phoenix can move so smooth with 6 legs…
Brains, to the rescue! (You know who you are… and so do we.)
Yes, I’ve proposed a cat! It’s not so much getting the gait to work (first time on the hexapod), but the cat is a very limber animal! It will take more then 3DOF joints to adequately represent a cat’s legs. A limber spine is also called for, along with front paws that have the required flexibility!
But yes, we need a good chassis to start with! KÃ¥re has posted pix on his Felix (or was that a dog?), I hope to see more of it (hint).
Do you have ideas? We’d love to hear them!
Alan KM6VV
i had posted a bit about this a few months ago and i lost the link. but you can now find it at the bottom of this post:
MECHANICAL:
frame dimensions: approx 10" (254mm) long, 9" (228mm) wide in front, 6" (152mm) wide in back.
leg extension below frame: approx 7" (178mm) in front, 6" (152mm) in rear.
frame material: copper-coated pcb.
leg brackets: Lynxmotion SES.
weight: total = 42-oz (1190gm), frame+controller = 11-oz (311gm), 10/ea servos+SES = 26-oz (736gm), 5/ea AA-Cells = 5-oz (142gm).
this illustrates the left-front leg (to left in photo) folded up, and the left-rear leg (to right in photo) in standup straight position.
In the front leg, the 2 lower joints represent shoulder (upper) and elbow (lower) joints, analogous to biological quadrupeds. In the rear leg, the joints represent hip (upper) and knee (lower).
The vertical-axis rotary joint is “experimental”, and was added to aid turning movements.
http://www14.addr.com/~oricom//projects/poco/poco1c.jpg
the positions of the left-side legs when the rear leg is taking a step forward.
(The rear leg has a rubber foot that had not been added to the front leg as yet).
http://www14.addr.com/~oricom//projects/poco/poco3b.jpg
both legs fully retracted, as it would be in a “resting” position.
Note that the “kink” was specifically added to the legs to facilitate this folding, but the kinks have no affect on operation of the legs when fully-extended (as shown in the first picture above), other than to change the servo angles by a few degrees.
http://www14.addr.com/~oricom//projects/poco/poco4b.jpg
Ah! You’ve got another quadruped robot built!
Looks familiar. Are you posting pix of one of your robots? Oh, it’s Oricom Technologies “Poco” Quadruped. Your commentary made me think it was your 'bot for a minute.
It’s a very clever chassis in either case. but I don’t think our quadruped joints work exactly like that. I think KÃ¥re has a good start on a cat, er, dog!
I do see that you provided a link to Oricom. One of my favorite haunts!
Alan KM6VV
When I voted “other” I was thinking that support for flying bots would be cool. However the idea of a snake bot is also very intriguing.
Most Bots are walkers or something with weels.
What about the Water?
Could be cool to have something like this:
youtube.com/watch?v=-vT-oidWyXE&feature=related
i m for a sneak 
I think a miniature Robonaut (without the extremely intricate hands) would be an awesome project. Maybe I should try that.
I’m all for the BUGS…NO DOGS!!! they’re over done already and are limited when it comes to the variations that you can have.
A dog----4 legs
A BUG----multiple limbs with graspers
A dog—two eyes…black and white.
A BUG—multiple eyes, infrared sight , multiplexed sight etc
A dog—two ears…good hearing but not ultrasonic like a some BUGS can hear.
Basically I’m just putting out the point that you can build a robot insect and almost mimic the exact bug with all the high tech goodies that we are already using where as the dog is just a dog, two eyes,two ears etc.
I don’t know any dogs with sonic range finders but some bugs have them.
I have various robot dogs kicking around and basically there all the same…sit, roll over, play dead, etc.
I would like to see:
A phoenix body with mounts for a head and tail or any kind of octopod body…then I would just add six legs and use the other two spots for a head and tail.
Maybe that qualifies under the “bug” catagory. 