FOBO bipedal walking robot

FOBO is the fourth prototype from Project Biped. It is a 3D printed, self-contained, statically balanced, bipedal robot. It has 8 DOF (degrees of freedom) and can walk around its environment and avoid obstacles using an ultrasonic range sensor. All of the designs, instructions, source code, and parts lists are provided for free. FOBO was designed to be easily made by anyone with a low cost 3D printer and an interest in learning about robotics.

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Step 1: Static walking

FOBO walks statically meaning that at every frame of the animation it is balanced and won't fall over if it stops. The walking cycle is 10 key frames with 10 frames interpolated in between each frame.

sanjay satheesh says: Apr 20, 2013. 8:50 AM

nice project. i like it dude

mithun tr says: Mar 28, 2013. 12:54 AM

I love this robot i am going to make it

richimf says: Mar 24, 2013. 5:08 PM

I love this tutorial, Wow :D

H3ll3 says: Apr 1, 2012. 3:25 AM

Amazing project, where can i find the pieces to make the head and the legs, do u use a 3d printer? :)

Trigger_Happy says: Mar 31, 2012. 12:46 AM

Awww, that's one cute little robot! :-)

chuckcrunch says: Mar 25, 2012. 3:54 AM

have you heard of
http://letsmakerobots.com/

jdowdall (author) in reply to chuckcrunchMar 27, 2012. 8:59 AM

Thanks for sharing the site. It looks like FOBO would fit in well ... I'll have to make a post there for sure!

javajunkie1976 says: Mar 26, 2012. 4:29 PM

Could this be made for those without a 3d printer?

jdowdall (author) in reply to javajunkie1976Mar 27, 2012. 8:57 AM

There are websites that will print 3d files for you. I checked out everyone I could find to see how much it would cost for people without a 3D printer to have the plastic parts for FOBO made. The results were ridiculously expensive. The cheapest site was Shapeways which cost around $360 with shipping. That is about a third of the cost of buying a new Thing-O-Matic 3D printer from Makerbot. My advice would be to buy a 3D printer and print the parts yourself rather than pay for someone else to make them. Once you have your own 3D printer it will take about 18 hours to print and consume around 1/5 of a spool of plastic (that's about $10 worth of plastic). If for some reason you don't want to get your own 3D printer I can make the Shapeways FOBO files public so that you can pay them to have it printed ( although it would pain me ;-).

profpat says: Mar 25, 2012. 9:26 PM

great project!

peacefulshades says: Mar 25, 2012. 5:37 PM

Oh wow, that's pretty amazing!

SCIENCEPAL says: Mar 24, 2012. 10:13 AM

Awesome project dude!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

botguy24 says: Mar 23, 2012. 6:35 AM

Yet again wow! your bot looks so professional! It moves so smoothly too. must have been fun getting it to balance with that big box on top!

jdowdall (author) in reply to botguy24Mar 23, 2012. 5:37 PM

Thanks! There were lots of face plants while I was working out the walking cycle ... but that was half the fun. Future designs will have the batteries in the feet to help with the weight distribution.