Jansen Walker - Beta 2
Description
Note: New Version (Beta 2.1) posted 06/05/2009
New features: 12 legs instead of 8, "drop-in" center platform, 1:1.8 ratio gears, many small changes.
I only update this listing for major revisions of the walker, it's possible there's a minor revision posted at my site that is not here: 4volt.com/projects/jansen/
What you see here is the Jansen walker, a laser-cut robot, based on the Jansen Mechanism. It has 12 legs and scuttles similar to a crab walking sideways. The brain is a Arduino, and the legs are powered by 2 micro-servos modified for continuous rotation.
This project is heavily influenced by Theo Jansen's natural gearing mechanism, it’s a very efficient mechanical leg design for converting rotary motion into leg movements, and is very elegant in my opinion. The basis is the relative distance of the 12 joins, Jansen calls them "The 12 Holy Numbers". The numbers were developed with a genetic algorithm. In a couple of interviews that he wrote the evolver on a Atari STe computer and it took literally months of 1990’s processing power to find the solution.
For more info on Theo Jansen as well as some video and pictures see strandbeest.com.
I've marked this as non-commercial creative commons licensed, but it would be very easy for anyone get me to license a commercial version to almost anyone. For the most part I would just like to make sure I agree with the usage, and make sure I am aware of it.
See vimeo.com/4221721 for a video of the motion.
The home for this project is 4volt.com/Projects/Jansen/
Also, if you don't have a laser cutter, but would like a set of laser cut parts for this project see: 4volt.com/donate.aspx#jansen
Instructions
Parts List:
4- 0.5in m3 (#6 US) bolts (Center platform)
12- 0.75in m3 (#6 US) bolts (1 Per leg)
36- 0.75in m2 (#8 US) bolts (3 per leg)
12- 1.5in m3 (#6 US) bolts (4 for battery, 4 per axle)
2- 12in m3 (#6 US) threaded rods
(66 bolts total)
3- m3 stand off nuts (arduino standoff)
94 - m3 nuts (#6-US 7 per leg, 19 per axle, 12 for center)
84- m2 nuts (#8-US 9 per leg)
36- m3 locking washers (#6-US 2 per leg, 6 per axle)
24- m2 locking washers (#8-US 3 per leg)
(238 washers and nuts total)
108- Plastic leg parts (9 per leg)
30- Plastic axle/gear parts
7- Plastic parts for center platform
1- Can of plasti-dip, enough for many walkers. (Optional)
(146 plastic parts total)
(450 hardware parts total)
1- Arduino or Arduino clone
1- Power source (6-20 volts)
2- Micro servos, modified for continuous rotation
1- Breadboard for easy electrical connections (Optional)
10- Short wires for bread-boarding
4- Buttons for directional control (Optional)
(21 electrical parts)
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Any chance of hearing more about the breadboard circuit?
that would be cool.
thingiverse supports eagle .brd and .sch files too, btw... ;)
The circuit is very simple, it's primarily why I chose to use servos instead of geared motors.
The positive leads on the servos go to the Arduino's regulated +5v, and the negative goes to the ground pin.
The servo's control wires go to the digital pin 2 and 3.
The Arduino then sends a PWM signal to the servos to control the speed, which is pretty simple to do in the Arduino's software.
The alternative would be to use a separate motor controller which adds a small bit of cost to the project.
We need to get back to a laser cutter this is well awesome.
(Otis (the robot) is also feeling his first pangs of robot love)
Excellent project. You should consider offering this as a kit. I'm sure it would be very popular.
this is a fantastic project, love it! planning to build one ASAP!
a note for the open source hardware purists and for anyone who want to do anything commercial-related - the title says "open source" and one of the comments say "open source robots" but it's actually creative commons non-commercial, 4volt might want to update it since most folks who see "open source" will assume commercial use is ok-- and since this project and kits are based on the open source arduino it will be even a little more confusing.
the oomlout bot is open source and also creative commons, commercial use is ok (see the licensing here)...
http://www.thingiverse.com/thi...
i get asked about this a lot, figured i'd give a heads up before an OSH nerd fight breaks out
:)
Thingiverse is now home to at least THREE open-source robots. How amazingly cool and awesome is THAT?
License
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Yay! Got the 3 leg version of this working today- video here: http://vimeo.com/4739602 and some pics here:
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