Build-It-Yourself Progress

Not industrial espionange. This robot is heavily based off of the MIT mini cheetah, which most of the design for is opensource (e.g. [0], [1]). Ben Katz has an amazing blog[2] which if you dig through you can read about a lot of the design decisions and testing for the mini cheetah. Funny enough, after designing the mini cheetah for his master's thesis Ben went to work for Boston Dynamics (I think he started there two or three years ago). 0: https://github.com/mit-biomimetics/Cheetah-Software 1: https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/118671 2: https://build-its-inprogress.blogspot.com/

Nice build :) Have you checked out EasyEDA + jlcpcb? It can improve the electronics aspects of robot projects. I searched a bit now to see if any new projects have shown up. Came across this one: https://hackaday.io/project/167845-mjbots-quad Could maybe be interesting, but I haven't looked into it. Here is a chinese motor manufacturer that makes more sane motors: http://www.gyems.cn/product.html Getting a drone or gimbal working properly from scratch is a lot of work. And these dynamic walking systems are more complex endeavors because there is less info out there. So I would recommend to find some project with people who seems talented and has a nice atmosphere and then get building :) edit: Ratholed on this, here is a nice blog with inspiration (scroll for lots of awesome) https://build-its-inprogress.blogspot.com/

Read this: https://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2097/1507/JamesMevey2… It's a thesis from James Mavey titled "Sensorless field oriented control of brushless permanent magney synchronous motors". Other good resources: http://build-its-inprogress.blogspot.com http://discourse.odriverobotics.com/ https://things-in-motion.blogspot.com

If you're looking for a good place to start, I highly recommend reading Ben Katz' blog and thesis: Blog posts: "HobbyKing Cheetah" http://build-its-inprogress.blogspot.com/search/label/HobbyKing%20Chee… Thesis: "Low Cost, High Performance Actuators for Dynamic Robots" https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2x3Di8kVjT3N3BkQzhSQ3FwTU0 (Edit to note: Ben's design uses gears and thus is not direct drive, but his bot still has lots of power and software-controlled "springiness".)

> Nice build :) Have you checked out EasyEDA + jlcpcb? It can improve the electronics aspects of robot projects. Thanks! Yeah, the electronics is a bit gross. This build was probably 6 years ago perhaps? I got it to the point that it worked and then it was kinda "done" and all that was left was polish, but it was really a toy so there wasn't much point and I left it. Planning on building something for slug and snail control (NW UK, they can be a problem), and cat/badger/squirrel scaring in my garden (they dig up things). Will likely make use of PCBs with this so will check out the links. > Here is a chinese motor manufacturer that makes more sane motors: http://www.gyems.cn/product.html So I did some digging and found this guy: https://www.youtube.com/user/SkyentificTube/videos He does a some testing of some Turnigy motors (a bit like this: https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy-aerodrive-sk3-6374-149kv-brushless… there's a whole range) which looked cool, and he was using an odrive controller https://odriverobotics.com/ which also looked pretty handy, so there's some stuff to check out there, but he also did some tests with some gyems motors and they looked great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smQJeg87ff8 > dynamic walking systems are more complex Given the speed of slugs and snails I am going to probably go for a less dynamic movement style. Less force, smaller motors, longer…

Here part 2: https://build-its-inprogress.blogspot.com/2016/08/desktop-inverted-pen…

Sorta related: (if this video triggers some brain neurons from the past) In 2018, this was solved by some guys (I believe one worked for Boston Dynamics) in 0.38s. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt00QzKuNVY Hardware Info: https://build-its-inprogress.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-rubiks-contrapti… Software Info: https://cactus-zone.blogspot.com/2018/03/rubiks-solver-software.html

Very impressive. Comparing the slow-mo to one of a different rubik solver [0], there's much less overshoot in this one. [0] https://build-its-inprogress.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-rubiks-contrapti… (see first video)

That channel owner, Ben Katz did the mechanical hardware, motor control PCB + firmware for the MIT Mini Cheetah as part of his PhD, here is his blog post on it[1], which links to a full technical report. The latest firmware is here [2] [1] http://build-its-inprogress.blogspot.com/2019/03/hello-there-mini-chee… [2] https://os.mbed.com/users/benkatz/code/Hobbyking_Cheetah_Compact_DRV83…

You’re assuming they’re using a linear controller, and they’re way ahead of you [1]. But I don’t think they’re overshooting per se. I think they’re landing the centers in the right place, but the outer pieces account for most of the moment of inertia, and they’re flexible, so the overall assembly is deforming. Deriving the optimal control law for that could be a bit messy. I would guess that it involves bringing the center piece nearly to a stop slightly short of 90 degrees and then gently bringing it the rest of the way. [1] https://build-its-inprogress.blogspot.com/2017/12/controls-ramblings-h…

This is a clone of a friends project, http://build-its-inprogress.blogspot.com/2014/05/external-display-from… Remind me again, what is the £165,000 for, R&D?