Sunday, July 7, 2013

This hyper-realistic robotic spider will give you nightmares



What do you get when you combine 26 tiny servo motors in a3D printed shell that looks a lot like a spider? Well, nightmares certainly, but you also get an incredibly lifelike little robot. The Robugtix T8 is an eight-legged robot that can move so much like a real spider, you’ll be tempted to smash it. But it’s expensive — don’t smash it.



Each leg of the robot contains three motors, and two more are in the abdomen just to make the movement extra realistic and creepy. The outer shell is produced in a 3D printer, but it’s really just for show. Underneath it’s just your basic eight-legged terrifying robot.



The T8 is powered by an embedded microcontroller running a movement engine called Bigfoot Inverse Kinematics. This engine ensures that the user doesn’t have to worry about sending complicated instructions to the robot. Using the wireless controller, you can simply select a gait and tell the T8 which direction you want it to go. The robot handles all the calculations on-board.

The T8 kit is up for pre-order now, with an expected ship date of August 31st. It’s going to cost you a whopping $1,350, but it jumps to $1,500 after August 1st. That’s very steep, but there’s a much less spendy, and still pretty neat/creepy option from Robugtix.

The IITSII is a hexapod version of the T8 — so less arachnid-inspired and more insectoid. Instead of 26 motors, it only has 18. That’s still three in each leg, but none in the body. So it can’t do the insane spider poses the T8 is capable of, but it still uses the Bigfoot Inverse Kinematics engine to maneuver around in a very realistic way. This robot is available for pre-order at $250. It will be $350 after the August 1st cutoff date.

You can’t deny these are awesome robots, but the prices listed are only for the kits themselves (some assembly required). If you want the controller and Xbee wireless receivers, that’s going to be an extra $85. You can also rig your own serial communication method with the provided Rx/Tx pins. These are open devices, after all.

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