Hexabot: Build a heavy duty six-legged robot!

Step 25 Epilogue

I learned a lot in the process of building (and documenting) this robot. It's definitely the proudest accomplishment of my robot building career.


Some notes after having ridden and operated Hexabot:

-The the phase of the rotation between the two motors affects the robot's ability to move around. It seems that adding encoders to the motors would allow for better control of the gait.

-The wooden feet do protect floors, but are not perfect. There tends to be a decent amount of slippage on the surfaces I have tested it on so far (a wooden floor, smooth concrete floor, and linoleum floors).

- The robot may need feet with a larger surface area to walk on grass/dirt surfaces. Though I haven't tested it on these surfaces yet, it seems that, due to its mass, it may tend to sink into the ground due to the small surface area of the feet.

- With the batteries I have (2 12V 17Ah lead acids wired in parallel) the run time of the robot seems to be about 2.5 ~ 3 hours of intermittent use.

- With the motors I have, I estimate the capacity of the robot to be about 200 pounds.

Comments

[ronmaggi]

 he means that adding an optical rotational sensor or the like will allow the micro-controller to know where the legs on one are in relation to the other side. Of course if the micro-controller tried to put them back in phase, the robot would just turn back the way it came from. 

[Don.Jambo]

Please explain: -The the phase of the rotation between the two motors affects the robot's ability to move around. It seems that adding encoders to the motors would allow for better control of the gait.