About once a week, we like to feature a project from one of our customers. This week, it's the StickybotIII from Salomon Trujillo and Stanford University.
StickybotIII is a cleverly designed robot that combines principles of mechanical and electrical engineering (and biology) to have the ability to climb vertical surfaces with ease. This little guy (well, not that little) can motor up vertical planes at a speed of 5cm/second. Its four legs each have four degrees of freedom and each motor has a local microprocessor (PIC) handling the servo control. It also uses a MMA7260Q accelerometer, Bluetooth UART, and a MicroSD for data logging function. Check out the video below to see the StickbotII in action! Props to Salomon and Stanford's Biomimetics and Dexterous Manipulation Lab!
Yeah Sal! Good to see stickybot on SF.
I dont understand how the tail "decreases the load that the feet have to bear". Does anyone know how that works?
In order to balance forces, the lowest point the robot must push into the wall. Imagine that you are hanging off a vertical ladder, holding your center of mass away from the ladder. Your upper arms hang from the ladder, but your feet push into the ladder. So, the lowest point on the robot always pushes into the window. Now, again imagine the difference between hanging onto a ladder normally and by moving your hands and feet closer together (take a few steps up the ladder without moving your hands...DON'T ACTUALLY TRY THIS AT HOME!). Suddenly, there's a lot more weight on your upper arms. The same principle is true on the robot: a long tail helps to resist the pitch-back force.
http://bdml.stanford.edu/twiki/bin/view/Rise/SB3FAQ
I believe it works as a lever, the legs press against the wall thus raising the body of the robot, the tail then hits the wall resisting the lift.
It's a bit difficult to explain.
And it grips the wall as well, holding up some of the weight
Some of my favourite ted videos by Robert Full are on the topic of using biology to build robots: http://www.ted.com/speakers/robert_full.html
The robot Full's third video is Stickybot I, the predecessor to Stickybot III. In fact, his video mentions the discovery of the importance of a tail for climbing.