Why Walking Robots are Easy

I’ve built quite a few walking robots in the past. If you head right back to the start of my YouTube channel there are quite a few large robots that could just about hobble along made out of wood and driven by windscreen wiper motors and other parts I could get hold of. I built these early in this century in the room of a house share I use to live in, which is why there’s a bed in the corner of the shot.
I’ve moved on quite a bit since then to some robot dogs that I’ve built recently, but a few years ago I built some bipedal robots like RobotX and my Walking Gonk Droid. These actually had a sense of balance, using an inertial measurement unit to read how far they were leaning over and make the motors respond accordingly to keep them upright. That can be quite tricky though and most of what’s on YouTube is the good cuts of footage where it worked just about ok.
I’ve taken some of these projects to events like Maker Faires, and you’ll always find one person…
So in this video I’m going to build that simple sounding robot which just shifts is mass to one side and moves the other foot to take a step.

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XROBOTS

Former toy designer, current YouTube maker and general robotics, electrical and mechanical engineer, I’m a fan of doing it yourself and innovation by trial and error. My channel is where I share some of my useful and not-so-useful inventions, designs and maker advice. Iron Man is my go-to cosplay, and 3D printing can solve most issues - broken bolts, missing parts, world hunger, you name it.

XRobots is the community around my content where you can get in touch, share tips and advice, and more build FAQs, schematics and designs are also available.

[jajasi]

As a non engineer that has worked in the animation industry, I am very curious about why usually there is no rotation or torsion in the torso of walking robots, and why they don't use the arms to modify the center of mass even if they are not fully functional. Those two are insanely important for equilibrium and they seem to be completely underused

[YourArmsGone]

I really like this robot. I know it's slow and awkward but the linear rails and shifting mass make it's movement very unique. It looks like a 3D printer learned how to walk.

[ersetzbar.]

I think people tend to underestimate or simply forget how critical and complicated feet are for walking

[jamesbruton]

Should I attempt another Dynamically Stable Bipedal Robot project? This time I'd use the Quasi Direct Drives/Cycloidal Drives and Inverse Kinematics like openDog3.

[Galerak]

It's great to see that your dad takes an interest in your work and even makes recommendations as to how you should accomplish certain tasks.
It's strange how you never picked up his accent though 🤣🤣

[lionhardt]

Describing 2007 as "earlier this century" knocked me out cold. At 32 I'm freaking ancient. I was born in the late 1900s. 🤯

[ZeroInDaHouse]

Can you imagine we live in an age where a 2005 tech prototype robot is used to pump the stock price of a car company. Not to mention its more improved and advanced successor had to be cartwheeled on stage by three people with a stick up its robotic butt. Amazing times we live in.

[boogeyman]

I love how passionate you are about your work, always a gem to see the level of ingenuity you put into your videos, CAD Designs, and Robots. Cheers!

[asquithea]

The behaviour at 14:30 actually looked kinda interesting - makes me wonder what would happen if your robot had a greater focus on throwing mass around up top in two axes to create rapid dynamic movements a bit like some of your balacing robots, paired with lighter fast-moving legs to "catch" and redirect the movement to run (or stagger!)

[Mu-podcast]

The way you built this new bot is how I imagined the Gonk droid worked (in universe) when I was little. I imagined a chunk moving back and forth, or some kind of hinged hammer-like thing swinging side to side to make it balance.

[franckcarton]

If it's just for left and right balancing, maybe a reaction wheel could do the trick ?

[H...]

Even easier, have two "meshed" forked legs that walk over each other, like many wind up toys. Personally I was unimpressed with tesla's reveal, and I have serious doubts about everything elon claimed. The robot they showcased walking was doing a static walk, just like this robot.

I'd be pretty keen to see you tackle a walking robot that's uses a control moment gyro, just like your one wheel balancing robots. I (and I'm sure everyone else) really appreciate your honesty and frankness with how things are going. You don't exaggerate what your robots can do and you show a lot of the R&D, and how you work step by step to fix problems and improve whats there. Elon could learn a thing or two from you.

Love the sped up edit. Between how it moves and the music reminds me of older cartoons.

[jumhig]

Perhaps a good idea would be to mechanically link the leg lift with the weight shift - as the leg lifts it swings or rotates the counterweight to the opposite side of the machine.

[c.fisherfighter]

could you tell us how much time you take to make like each section? Because i know for you, this litterally no dig deal or its your "Job". But whenever i try to do anything it takes ages, so seeing your stuff is mine blowing. dedication👍

[MrKfadrat]

could you please make your own robot, slightly better than boston dynamics one, and put it as open source? i mean, id love to see tesla show something less embarressing next year, and we all know all they are capable of is stealing ideas..

[SuperShootter]

This might sound weird but i truly hope the joy and wonder of making these robots, even one so "simple" hasn't been lost on you at all.

I can only imagine the ammount of joy gained from seeing a creations first steps

[FifthConcerto]

That does it. The ATATs don't shift their mass laterally, and having seen this, I now call foul! Unless the Empire just stuffed a bunch of Storm Troopers in the main body and they fly around from side to side as counterbalances. That would be hilarious, and mechanically acceptable.

[conorstewart]

Some STM32 chips can use their timers to measure quadrature encoders, it has the advantage that it keeps track of them in hardware so you don’t need interrupts or to poll the pins, you just ask the timer what the counter is at whenever you want.

[naikrovek]

ok you definitely need to do more impressions of people. "why don't you have it shift its weight while it lifts up the opposite leg? seems easy to me" rofl

[RR-gmqj]

Elon Musk: mark my words! Robots will kill us all!

Also Elon Musk: Here’s my state of the art robot