Naminukas Hybrid Pneumatic Wheel Robot Learns New Tricks
This robot walks, rolls, climbs, and more on a pair of suction cup feet that double as wheels.
When we last featured Naminukas by Mykolas Juraitis, the robot could grip the floor or other surfaces with two suction cups, holding one leg down while the other leg rotates in a strangely suspended walking gait. It could also rotate these grippers in order to act as wheels.
While it was certainly a robot like no other, experimentation with it seemed to have been only scratching the surface at the time. After several months, this little bot's abilities have expanded greatly, as seen here and on its official website.
Walk, Roll, Climb
To show off its basic skills, you can see Naminukas walk over a hard surface, then roll over a small mat in the video below. Finally, it slowly climbs the wall.
Locomotion with “Tools”
In the next video, Naminukas can’t quite step the base of a door However, it uses its dual gripper design to first move a plate onto this obstruction as a bridge, then “suction” its way over. In the clip after that, it uses a roller assembly as a skateboard, powering it along with one wheel, while the other grips the board’s surface.
Climb Trees? Traverse Grates?
If it needs to climb a tree, track, or pole, it's able to accomplish this with the two wheels straddling and gripping the object. This is seen below, with it moving on the sides of the wheels on a flat surface. The next clip shows it gripping a flat surface with one suction cup, while the other rolls over a grate.
Naminukas has learned several other non-locomotion tricks as well, including drawing with markers, and opening a jar. Juraitis even attached a UV LED to it to experiment with disinfection. These feats, and many more are outlined on the device’s YouTube page, worth a look for some robotic entertainment!