3-D Printed Mechanical Walking Robot Toy!

Intro: 3-D Printed Mechanical Walking Robot Toy!

This is a fully mechanical toy robot that I designed. Every part can be printed, sanded, and assembled! There is an inner mechanical chassis and system within this robot and can move both legs and arms.

STEP 1: Solidworks File - Printing Robot

The first step is to open the SolidWorks STL file. Upon opening, you will be able to view every single part. I suggest printing the inner mechanics and chassis first, before printing the outer body. Depending on your printer you will most likely need to sand parts that will be connected together.


*NOTICE: THIS ROBOT IS 20 INCHES TALL IN ORIGINAL FORM. PLEASE REDUCE SIZE WITH 3D PRINTING SOFTWARE. 1/3 SCALE YIELDS AN 8" ROBOT.

STEP 2: Sanding and Prep

After printing all of the parts you will want to scuff the exterior plastic parts with 150 grit sandpaper. After sanding you will wipe off all the dust and coat the exterior portions of every part with Weld-On (plastic welding solution) using a brush. You are looking for a glossy and somewhat smooth surface. After all of the parts are dry (within minutes) you are ready to primer all of the pieces.

STEP 3: Primer

Using a HPLV (high pressure low volume) spray gun you will apply a flexible high build primer (preferably automotive grade) to the exterior parts. After primer is dry, you will then send gradually up to 600 grit sandpaper, starting from 220 grit. When you get up to 600 grit, your model should look like this.

STEP 4: Paint

With your exterior parts all sanded to 600 grit, you are ready for paint! An airbrush is recommended for this portion in the model building process. Be creative and paint this robot however you want! The paints I used in the picture below were a white base-coat (on every exterior piece), A pearlescent orange was used for the main body color, and the accents were painted with a Kandy Teal. All paints were House of Kolor paints.

*Note: No clear coat was used on this model.

STEP 5: Assembly

After all exterior parts are painted and your mechanical chassis is working, you are ready for assembly! Make sure you mechanics are working and everything works properly before gluing and final assembly work! Here is the finished product; a fully mechanical toy that walks with bi-pedal movement!

Comments

[ccyclone]

Solidworks says the file True bottom support-1 cannot be found which invalidates nearly all the parts. You are also using a few metric toolbox parts that are not apparently Standard (I don't have them) And Solidworks complains that this is from an Educational Version and gives a warning, could you post STL files to get around all these limitations?

[schu51]

I did an initial ideation sketch process and took me a while before I settled on this design. I made orthographics to put into my chassis file and scale proportionately so everything fits. The movement is a little funny since theres no tolerances in the feet so it has this "clunky swagger" when it walks. the legs rotate and the feet will rotate over each other and since i hooked up the legs and the arms together, the arms also rotate and move as well. hopefully i can get a video up soon. my professor still has the only prototype in his office -_-

[Kiteman]

It looks very, very cool, love the blue accenting.

Did you create the files directly in SolidWorks, or did you start on paper?

What's the movement like? Does it waddle much? Can we see it in action?