E.I.T. - The way of the Martians (Work in progress)
E.I.T. - Earth Invading Tripod v. 1
"...higher than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and
smashing them aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering
metal, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel
dangling from it, and the clattering tumult of its passage mingling
with the riot of the thunder."
-- The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (1898)
Allways liked those Invading Tripods coming from space bringing chaos and destruction upon earth and mankind.
So want to build a Tripod, it's probaly not going to be the invading, man destroying kind like in The War of the Worlds, but that's definetly my source of inspiration.
At the moment 12 June 2008 I'm laying sick but skecthing how I think the first working model of the Tripod should be, as soon as I get better and get back to my own place I'll upload my sketches and come with some more details.
Did a quick paint drawing of what I hope to end up with in the end or it should be something like that.
Lego Prototyping
So had to finde out how to build a Tripod which has a good chance of walking, so at the PROSA Robotics meetup on June 18th I build a prototype of how the legs should be positioned and work and thx to the input and help to move around the lego prototype from JKA and Thomas Å, I now have a couple of ideas on how this Tripod could move around.
Tripod Movement
Have been doing some research/studying of tripod movement, from different movies and animations, and think I have figured out a way to move, working on some sketches of how it should work, will post them as soon as they are finishe, also started to finde materials to build E.I.T v.1 with.
To be continued ....
Oh yeah, they're the most
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.... -Marianne Williamson
Yea movie like moving Tripods not plausible
That got me thinking... I
That got me thinking... I wonder if memory wire, like Nitinol, could be used? Apply current and the wire would go limp and become flexible, drop current and the wire would return to it's initial shape and become rigid. It could provide the very flexible wavy legs like in the movie. I have no idea how much current is required for the wires to become limp or how much weight the wire could support when rigid. It may be possible to bind several pieces of wire and have them move in unison. Maybe the wire could be put inside a flexible piece of rubber, like a marine antenna, to provide more rigidity and weight bearing capability. Just a thought.
Some Nitinol products:
http://www.imagesco.com/catalog/nitinol/index.html
Will it do anything besides
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.... -Marianne Williamson
First goal make it walk
Well my first goal will be to make it walk, when that's done then a lot more fun can begin, but definetly could be cool to add some laser pointers to it or maybe some simple arms or something.
Something made of materials like this
http://www.eshopmegastore.com/images/flylight3_2.jpg
just hanging from both sides of the head and down with laser pointers, but first things first, something that resemples a Tripod and can walk that's the first goal.
The Voice of Reason
After having messed about with a biped, I realised I should have started with a hexapod!
Having said that, I really want this to work for you. So I will point out that to a certain extent, taller is better. If it's short, the legs will need to be FAST. Each will need to get up, move and get down again before the bot falls too far. The taller it is, the longer it takes to start to fall, so the slower the legs can be.
If we assume that the leg which is about to leave the ground is "number 1," I presume you're going to do something clever like shifting the centre of balance over number 2 and 3 before number 1 leaves the ground?
Uhm i'm not so sure that
Uhm i'm not so sure that it's gonna be easy :)
Anyway, i googled around and found this cool post:
http://blogs.spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/2007/10/08/this_three_legged_robot_walks_l.html
It contains a couple of very interesting video of a three legged robot
THAT is a cool project,
Loads of Motors
That is awesome !I would
That is awesome !
I would like to see how fast it could go since part of its gate is falling - it would be very exciting to watch.
I did not read the whole article but one thing I did notice offhand was - it appears that the robot has controller wires across the joints. If that is the case this robot can't do more than 2 or 3 strides in the same direction before it pulls out the control wires - it would need a slip ring on the joints (which are typically a pain in the arse) - unless part of the gate unravels the wires of the falling leg - regardless - its great ! I'd like to see it move more than 1 step without the CG.
Just goes to show you can move around in clever ways with 3 legs - maybe put blades on them and have it spin - transform itself into a helicopter :)
Videos
In the first video (in the link above) it does take ONE step. All the other videos are 3D rendering.
I'm not so sure the slip rings would be much of a problem (if that is how they've done it) The leg appears to "swing" into place rather than being powered, so for the mostpart of its movement, it probably doesn't even have any sensory feedback.
When I'm elected project leader, each leg will have its own power source and communication with the central pod will be by radio link. No slip rings....
Clever,I bet it will do
Clever,
I bet it will do the boogey woogey when it walks by a Tesla coil.
Boy - this is your first
Boy - this is your first robot.. you cannot do it :) It is a VERY hard task.
Perhaps give it wheels on each leg, and a propeller :D
(sorry, but someone had to be honest and direct - for your own sake - make an easy robot first time - at least a hexa, not a tri!)
I agree. The huge problem
When it works take off a leg and get it working...
LOL! Yeah, that may just be a good aproach; Start with 8 legs. and then take off one leg at a time :D:D:D
Zalz; Anything less than 6 legs that is walking is hard, because you will need to balance. This is why hexa's are popular; You can rest on 3 legs, move 3..
Easy thing aren't fun :)
So what if it's not easy, easy thing ain't fun, I know I should do something more easy to start with but well got the idea and well laying sick and started playing with the idea and just can't let go of it.
One has to start somewhere and what then if the thing you start with is not easy, well then maybe it just takes more time and maybe you learn more, but is that wrong, I don't think so.
And well things are only as hard as you make them, and I love a bloody challenge, and people should never tell what I can and can not do because well I hate that, but then againg it just makes it an even more interesting challenge.
Don't remember saying or writing that I thought that this would be easy og just a walk in the park, never thougt that, and never will, the idea of making something with wheels never apealed truely to me, not that I don't want to make some with wheels never but a person has to start with something and I have to start with what appeals to me and my inspiration and thats a bloody walking Tripod.
"If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything" Back to the Future - Doc Brown
Sorry if some of the above sound a little angry, thats not the intention, it's early in the morning and write what I think and I just can't take people limiting other peoples creativity and free thinking. I'm working on my Tripod no matter what people think or say because I can and I have an idea.
Yeah - go for it.however:A)
Yeah - go for it.
however:
A) Back to the future is a film where strange things can be done. This is reality, and it may suck :)
B) You should not take it "personal" - nobody is criticizing you as far as I know. It is all a matter of passing on experinences. And my experience tells me that you cannot make a tripod - "you" as in "Zalzer", me knowing this is your first project ever :) If you do not want to listen to that, hey - cool - surprise me :)
Just know that everyone wants you to have a good experience, that is the drive - not to take you down before you get started.
No matter what, you will learn from the ecperence, and hopefully have lots of fun!
:)
Preciesly Fun
The thing is what one can't make one learn to make, don't wanna do something I can do without a lot thought or learning, wanna do something that I don't know if I can and where I can learn a lot.
And yes preciesly it is all about having fun.
Frits' Special Way
Frits has an amazing ability to categorise people. He can tell from 2000km away what impetus is likely to cause people to work maximally. In your case he knew that saying "you can't do it" would cause you to increase your desire to prove him wrong.
Now, you WILL do it. It's the LMR way.
(Hehe - I'm pretty sure you hate being told you WILL do something. I'm learning the Frits method of encouragement.)
Don't know
Don't know if I hate being told I will do something, because in my world of thougt nobody existing in this universe can predict what will be done, they can theories and to some extend try and make a conclusion from what they know, but then again that depends on the things in the theory functioning under the rules under which the theory is made.
All physics/philosophy aside (could keep that going all day and night) if by saying "you will do this", as a command og indirect command, or statement of what i should do or an ultimatum of what to do, then yes thats as bad as telling me what I can or can not do.
Damm now my mind switched to chaos-theory thinking, to many thought system overload, think I'll just co back to my Tripod drawings.
Yea I'm wird I know it, now you know it :)
Go For It!If you don't fail
Go For It!
If you don't fail trying something, you don't learn as much from the experience.
Learn to love failure - I personally excel at it.
A Failure is only one solution which wasn't right
http://www.macuser.com/images
http://www.macuser.com/images/tripod.png
lol :)
Lifting a leg
The Tricky part
Oh no!
Oh no, you should NEVER have showed me that prototype in lego! Now you made me want to build a tripod in lego as well :-). Anybody up for tripod racing? :-D
I'm looking forward to seeing this in action!
And remember... a tripod is only half a hexapod... so it must be half as hard to do as a hexapod, no? ;-)
Definetly up for racing
Definetly up for a Tripod race when E.I.T v.1 is build and able to walk.
Could be interesting to build one in LEGO, but I would not advice using mindstorm as brain it's to heavy and you limited by how many motors you can use, and the motors are too clumsy
But but but... I want to
But but but... I want to build it in lego! :-D.
No I guess using standard servo motors would be much easier since the lego "servo" motors are not really servo motors but rather dc motors with encoders. It would be a pain to do the book keeping on the encoders if I was not to use the NXT brick for brains. Also it would be kind of expensive to get all the lego motors anyway :-)
Anyway... I have another lego project going on right now (where I'm actually going to go through the pain of book keeping of the encoders), so tripod will have to wait :-)
BTW. you do know that the NXT can talk to I2C devices, right? It's no so limited as many people think and it could easily control as many motors as you'd like it to given you build some extra I2C motor controller with additional power.
Cheers