I started this Project a few weeks ago, so it's still at the very beginning and HEAVILY work in progress. ;)
Goal of this Project is to have a tiny working "Clone" of Boston-Dynamic's SpotMini und using ML/RL to do/support leg/body-motion.
It is based on existing OpenSource-Projects and uses affordable Hardware to enable other People to build their own Robots and play around with Kinematics and Simulation to understand how all this works. So that one day there will be affordable four-legged OpenSource Robotic-Platforms everyone can build and put "logic" on top of.
So everyone of you is invited to contribute to this Project.
A project like Stanford’s Open-Source Doggo but much cheaper! And if it gets anywhere near Boston-Dynamic’s SpotMini it would still be an incredible robot.
Good luck with your project, I hope to see you around for the updates
thanks a lot @igor_X
And yes, every part of the Bot (except the Servos and Hardware) is printed.
I am using an AnyCubic I3 Mega with PLA from ERYONE, and TPU for the “Toes” (to have them flexible and with more Grip).
If you don’t have a printer yet, i would suggest an AnyCubic I3 (~280€).
The whole printing itself took some days / and ~1 roll of PLA. And then i sanded, primed and painted the parts. Which is REALLY annoying to me, but the results are so much better.
I guess that the whole chassis took about 3-4 Weeks to get finished (no overnight-printing, paint has to dry and most of this happened on the weekends).
Are you thinking about building it? YES! DO IT! It’s really worth “all the work” (and the work is quite fun…except the sanding/painting-stuff ;))
Thank you @geraldinebc15. Yes and i think it is important to have an affordable platform for this. I want to see/have a working 4legged OpenSource-RoboDogs in RealLive in some years!!! Seriously!!
How cool would that be. Imagine sending a swarm of 10,20,30 RobotDogs which are searching for people in destroyed houses after an earhquake…
…there are so many cool usecases for this… at least in my little n3rdhead
It would be really cool to find some passionists, contributors to drive this Project forward:
@cbenson thank you, i will keep you updated here! you can of course also follow my Project on GitHub. This is where i put all the links to new YouTubeVideos.
I think almost everyone in this forum would love to see something like that
And that is such an amazing idea!! Between rescuing doggos, robot surgery and 3D printed organs robots are going to save our lives! Unless something like what happened in Westworld (the tv show) takes place let’s hope it doesn’t haha
If you’re interested in seeing lots o new robots you should check out the news channel here https://robotshop.slack.com/messages/C7DP7AKDL/ A bunch of other n3rdheads share cool robots we see in the news haha
I love the whole idea of your project and I really hope it turns out as awesome as it sounds
Now I see you have your own hardware, that’s pretty amazing actually. Nvidia Jetson was a good idea, I’m planning to buy the TX2 to test some applications too. Do you have the kinematics already calculated?
I’ve never used Pybullet, did you create your simulator/environment? how friendly is it?
I had another Project using a TX2 and it’s really cool, but just too big for SpotMicroAI. I also tried a Jetson AGX Xavier Developer Kit, which was my first choice until i discovered the Jetson Nano. It is just perfect in size and weight. I don’t think it can handle all of Kinematics, RL and MonoSLAM, but i want to give it a try Maybe SpotMicro needs a backback with a second one in the future
Yes, the kinematics is working, there are a first and very basic trotting gait examples (example_leg_motion and example_automatic_gait)
I’ll have to clean up the code on the weekend. There’s a lot of “try-out” code in there.
I think the physics-engine is great. Erwin did/does a great job.
The Simulation of SpotMicroAI still does not behave very natural. That’s because masses and inertias of the parts, and torque and damping of the Servos are still wrong.
But see how it looks when it’s done right: https://www.youtube.com/user/erwincoumans/videos
If you have any questions/problems running the code send me a msg pls. And maybe you’ll have to modify the ButtonValues for the GamePad to start the trotting gait in the examples. Works with my gamepad
No sorry, no video yet. i had it “working” with the ArduinoMega, but without all the Kinematics and gait-stuff… so i was able to control the Servos but without any logic behind it. Not very exciting.
I disassembled the Bot this weekend to have correct weights measurements for the Simulation. I guess i will have it reassembled and working next weekend and maybe i’ll find time to finish the locomotion-part on the jetson.
I printed some new Parts for the JetsonNano + PCA + IMU. Works pretty well. I added the FreeCAD-Models to my GitHub-Repo.
I also replaced the old Images here with new ones.
And i have some first “BootCode” for the Jetson, displaying the IMU-Values on the OLED.
Hi! The MG996R are ok for the first tests. I plan to use them until SpotMicroAI is really working, so i don’t burn those more expensive Servos (15 for 75€ vs 1 for 25€)
let’s hope it doesn’t haha
