Content in “theo jansen”

Swiss Milka Cow project takes on some colour.

Firstly :- New body made (old one to flimsy) and also replaced motors again .....now with 10,000 rpm racing set (its an easy mod to do on all the GM motor range - just have to be careful not to strip the gears.....) - also IR remote installed and an Arduino Mega as brain.

I have removed the old bi-colour eyes and replaced with high intensity RGB ones instead.

Also i have installed a RGB led into the lower Jaw bone and along side an LDR to detect the reflected colour.

Following on from the Laser Experiments i have decided to attach it to some kind of walking Robot.

I am now a avid fan of Theo Jansen -  after rik brought him to light in his Blog.

So far i have Prototyped two pairs of "Theo" legs using "MindStorms" as an experimental base.

It worked better than i could have imagined - these legs go like a Cow on its way to the milking parlour.........

Only problem now is what  medium shall i use to make the final version.....

Sensing the living LMR community since 2008w43.

My Theo Jansen Walker is getting closer and closer to a robot-project-page-worthy machine/creature. The port side is now complete but not finished.

Complete in the sense that I have all components designed, purchaged, built and even assembled. Not finished in the sense that it will not move! Hence the lack of video. Photographs will have to do.

Today I decided on the arrangement of my Theo Jansen legs on the side of my future robot. I place one prototype on a piece of cardboard and traced the outlines with the legs in all possible positions. Like a robotic snow angel. This way I know what the "footprint" of the entire mechanism against the side of my robot will look like. And if one leg will hit a neighbour when flailing about.

Getting closer and closer. Today I needed to clear my head. I really were dreading mass producing my legs with all those brass pivots. During a nice walk in the sun, I figured I would try 10 mm beech smooth dowel rod.

[This photo links to my Flickr set with many more details.]

Advantages:

My Theo Jansen Leg is finally starting to become something reproducible. Every step in in this arduous journey has been aimed at reproduction. No robot needs just one leg. And also, I wanted to share my design with anyone who fancies a walking Strandbeest robot.

Update 25 feb 2009: New video demonstrating the first powered test. Maybe that should read overpowered test...

(The ugly green screens are an editing artifact. Imagine beatiful fades.)

(continued from here)

I am busy with the tweaking and fine tuning of my plywood version of prototype #5. I had no idea this would turn into a different design I now call #6.

This photo shows #6 in its leftmost position. It just cannot reach the extreme. There are still several small bits of plywood touching that should not be touching. Again with the jig and with the saw!

Continuing where I left off (after a stiff binary interruption)...

This picture compares prototype #2 with an angled profile version:

The angled "L-profile" introduces a new property in the design: chirality. All of a sudden, it matters which direction you want to fold the joints. Compare the symmetric #2 on the right:

I started tinkering with "Theo Jansen legs" again (follow the link first if you don't know what that means).

I am prototyping in corrugated cardboard and trying to come up with a design that could be produced in large numbers (six at least) in plywood.

For my dreamed symbiotic robots, I am looking for an alternative locomotion. For the passive robot (the trailer) anyway. The active tractor probably needs tracks. I heard Theo Jansen say on TED (improving on the wheel, 4 minutes into the video) that his design for a legged creature is (theoretically) more energy efficient than wheels or tracks.