This Racing Octapod Uses No Servos
Russel Munro’s Flexapod is a spider-like robot that zooms around using only a pair of motors.
When you think of walking robots, you probably consider something with a number of servos that actuate between two and roughly eight legs. Generally, they also move in a rather slow, determined manner. Russel Munro’s “Flexapod” is an octopod that defies both these conventions, scurrying around as shown in the video below, under the power of just two brushless DC motors.
This pair of motors transfer power to the spiders legs using rotating shafts and are able to induce a pattern of controlled motion on each of the legs through a cam system. Motors are turned together in sets of four on the left and four on the right, allowing the robotic creature to run in a straight line or rotate its heading via differential steering like a tank.
User interface is a fairly standard RC controller, though it needs to be modified to “remove a spring” per the build’s parts list. Lots more information on the Flexapod, including print files, are available in Munro's write-up.
If this looks vaguely familiar, it’s based on former Mythbuster Jamie Hyneman’s separate Racing Spiders project. As far as octopods controlled with two motors, we’ve featured a very different (and much slower) take on this idea on Hackster, in the form of my own ClearCrawler Strandbeest.