Stairclimbing Robot - First steps

Let's Make Robots Robots
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This is the first few steps of a step climbing robot using 5 servos and an Arduino uno - I guess the standard gear for my little bots. And again I am using a swinging counterweight to get things working. The micro servos are right at their limits and so I have to do some funky gyrations to get them to pick up the legs. I am ordering some higher voltage servos and lipo batteries - I can always use them on my rc wings too. I will mount the arduino uno on the body and try to find some harder material for "stairs" as the soft cover books make balancing a little tricky. I suppose the highest stair I can go now is about 2 cms without having to make the body wider to accommodate a bigger stair. Also I want to incorporate some sensor of some kind (maybe a bumper switch) to keep it from stepping too far, not sure how I will do that yet.

Since making the video I have suspended the battery pack (not currently used as all the servos are running off the Arduino) and it seems a little more stable.

climbs some steps

  • Sensors / input devices: none so far
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://community.robotshop.com/robots/show/stairclimbing-robot-first-steps
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Stair Climber

Very nice (as usual). Sharp IR distance sensors have a resolution of a few mm at 10cm range.  

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Interesting approach. I

Interesting approach.  I wouldn’t have thought that changing the cg for each step would work so well.  

thanks for sharing. 

Regards,

Bill

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Thanks. Actually I have the

Thanks. Actually I have the robot stepping twice as high now and by shifting the momentum of the counterweight quickly, it easiy “pull” itself up on the higher leg. Funny to watch. I believe when I get the high power servos I can go even higher. CG is underrated - lots more can be done with it.

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Sharp IR sounds like the way

Sharp IR sounds like the way to go then. I just need to know when the feet are about to bump up next to the back of the step.

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Nice project.

Nice project.

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Thanks. Yours too. Stair

Thanks. Yours too. Stair climbing is cool. I hope Im just getting started with mine.I can now climb about 4cm stair and with my next version I hope to double that.