Ok i touch upon doing this project back in 2010 with a very brief explanation of casting skins for robots.
i plan to sculpt the hugger and cast a skin that should fit over the internal workings.
With the advances in 3d printing i can now “start” this project.
it will be a while till i can afford to print this badboy… Dam i need a sponsor, but for now here are the CAD designs…
This time i have integrated the pulley system into the legs themselves rather than having to attach them separately. ill post details on that part later.
With this project id like to combine Animatronics and robotics. The robot will work in the same way as many of my animatronic projects do… An external pull pull system.
with in the system will be all the electronics/servos etc. giving me as much room as i need inside the hugger to get it all working.
The hugger 'ideally running a mod vertion of the phoenix code, will have the abbility to walk… I hope. but will be tethered.
Give us a shout via the Support Center (accelerator program dept). We can look into fully funding the prototype and also commercializing it (so you get a % from each sale).
Eight leg and 4 DOF! or 3 DOF where the tars follow the tibia through a linkage? You sure got me curious how you are going to gather all the servos. All 645’s?
How does the hugger work…
Well ill be making another servo pull case design that can hold up to 24 servos. Not necessarily 645s as the printed construction is very light.
I really like the design. Will this be an animations project or will it be an standalone, walking octopod? I like how you solved the extra DOF. The pushrod for the last joint will be interesting to solve with IK.
Due to the design and form of this project, it will be tethered to the servo control box. But I plan to implement the phoenix code so effectively its stand alone and will hopefully walk.
Yes the ik for that passive joint will be a challange but im sure there will be a work around…
Simple way of putting it would be to say if the tibia is at say 1500, then the leg is ## long, and if the tibia is at 1700, then the lenght will change to ##.