Here’s a lesson in doing a lot with very little. [Oldrobot] built this hexapod using cardboard for most of the pieces. He still had the box from his vacuum clear and it just happened to have a large black area the makes the top of the beetle look like it’s been painted.
The control board is from an old radio controlled airplane. Since RC airplanes used servos for flight control, it was a snap to hook up the three that make the bug go. One controls the set of middle legs which lift the body and change which of the propulsion legs are in contact with the ground. The other two servers move pairs of the front or back legs. It uses the same concept as this other RC controller hexapod, but much less time went into crafting the chassis and legs.
As you can see in the video after the break, the control scheme isn’t the most intuitive. But once you get a hang of which stick orientation affects each leg movement the bot ends up having fairly precise steering.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eveKta_UM5o
now this is a hack.
very nicely done!
“The other two servers move pairs of the front or back legs.”
Yup.
There is one servo on the front legs and one on the back. They are linked together into one channel on the receiver so they move together.
My comment was in reference to the typo. I built a hexapod just like this one when I was young, so I’m familiar with the build.