The Stargate SG-1 replicators inspired Wyatt Olson to create a hexapod robot for a competition hosted by Hackaday back in April. Stubby, as this hexapod is called, is a fine example of what kind of complex robots people can build at home.
Ever since Olson submitted Stubby for that competition, he and his fellow (enthusiast) roboticists have been trying to improve the hexapod. I admire people who ever strive for progress and for doing things better, even though perfectionists have a few faults of their own.
In the following video, which was uploaded by Olson last week, you get to see the third version of Stubby. It’s easy to assume that the developer of the Stargate SG-1 inspired hexapod robot enjoys documenting his progress so that his fans are aware with the changes made from one version to another.
Stubby is omnidirectional, as exemplified in the video. Olson showed how easy it is for the robot to walk, turn and rotate its body along the three axes. Best of all, the hexapod robot can be controlled with a modified PlayStation 2 controller.
For a first-timer, Olson did quite well: “This project is my first experience with walking robots. The concept is loosely based off of the SG-1 universe’s replicators, although there are definitely differences. Stubby version 3 has six legs with three DOF per leg, whereas the replicators have four legs with four DOF per leg. Then there is the whole thing of Stubby not being able to consume raw resources to construct copies of itself… I figure I will add that feature in the next version.”
As you might have noticed, he’s determined not to stop here, so there will definitely be more versions in the future. Should the changes be dramatical, I will provide a follow-up to this story, just to see how a hexabot can be improved.
Lazy geeks might want to buy Stubby, but they should know that it is not commercially available. The others will be happy to know that all the tools and the components needed for building this robot from scratch are available on Stubby’s project page. Everything needed for making a hexabot such as this one shouldn’t cost more than $150, provided that you already have the necessary tools.
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