Sintra-sticks (or my first quadruped)

My fourth robot and my first quadruped, influenced by Chopsticks Junior and Jeffrey The Quadruped.

Built using:

• Arduino Mico
• Pololu Micro Serial Servo Controller
• (9) Turnigy TGY-1800a Micro Servos in (3) 3 Packs
• Sharp GP2Y0A21 Distance Sensor
• 400 pin Breadboard
• 3mm Sintra (PVC Foam)
• 3M Extreme Double Sided Tape
• Gorilla Glue & Gorilla Super Glue
• Pencil Erasers
• 9V + 4 AA or 4 AAA

As mentioned, this is my first quadruped, so building took longer than expected. I had all the controllers and servos prior to having an idea for the robot build. It was fun planning everything out on paper and translating it to the Sintra, even though I still have flaws in the current design. This was my first time using Sintra to help build the base of the robot and I went through a few bases before doing the current one. Cutting by hand using a Xacto cutting board and a right angle rule can be taxing on the hands/wrist after a while...

Some of the concerns of the robot is the weight, which was a big worry from the beginning, the second being the range of the upper legs.

- The weight has been a concern because of the batteries and the effect on the servos. The basis of the robot was to have the main wieght in the middle with (lighter) NIMH batteries (a pack if available). While I am still entertaining a battery pack idea (waiting to get a decent charger), the one I have may not be enough to power everything (6v 1200mah pack). I am going with the 9V/4xAA route for now, testing 4xAAA for weight. The robot does bow slightly at the upper leg servos, which worries me now, but I will take into consideration on future robots. The base was not made wider because I was worried this would bow even more and have more stress on the servos.

- The second concern was the range of motion on the legs. As this can't be changed at this point, my concern is how much movement they have until they start banging into each other. I can adjust this in the code, but how much will it hinder the walk sequences...

So far this has been a fun experience and I am planning my next two robots (already have a Dagu Micro Magician and a Attiny84 to be used) when I am done with this one !

To do:

• Add pencil erasers to feet for traction
• Clean up wiring
• Work on walk cycle
• Fix code so everything is not hard coded....
• Work on other fun functions...
• Add in distance sensor code
• Inverse Kinetics?