Robot’s Wheels Transform Into Legs

Energy & Sustainability Robotics Technology
Robot’s Wheels Transform Into Legs
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Well, more accurately, they transform into “whegs,” which look like legs, but are driven like wheels and don’t, as a rule, have powered joints. Apart from sheer novelty value, the advantage seems to be that Quattroped is capable of high “road speeds” when it’s on a smooth surface and in wheeled mode, but can transform to negotiate rough terrain that the wheels alone couldn’t manage. It’s the work of a team from National Taiwan University. Intrepid roboporter Evan Ackerman has more deets over at IEEE Spectrum.

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20 thoughts on “Robot’s Wheels Transform Into Legs

  1. Jeremiah Blatz says:

    THis is all kinds of awesome, but the transformation from legs to wheels requires an external actor. The wheels are under spring tension, and there’s no onboard way to recompress them.

  2. worldpuppet99guspuppet says:

    My email client sorts my emails into different mailboxes ….. unfortunately “MAKE” is not unique enough for me to recognize the subject line or the “from address” and put stuff in my hacker mailbox………. Could you change “MAKE” to *MAKE* or MAKEmail or ????

    Best
    Gus

  3. John says:

    This is awesome! You are a genius! It’s a real great Idea! I want to do the same thing for my robot.However…What about the life time..??? I can see at the end of the movie, one of the “leg” are not entirely closed…

  4. Brian says:

    The Animal Monster Truck, circa mid 80’s. No engineering problem is truly new, as they say.

  5. Este robot con ruedas que se convierten en patas mola, pero resulta inquietante | Noticias CEU says:

    […] Más en Robot’s Magic Wheels Transform Into Legs, vía Make. […]

  6. Este robot con ruedas que se convierten en patas mola, pero resulta inquietante | Planeta Neuquen says:

    […] Más en Robot’s Magic Wheels Transform Into Legs, vía Make. […]

  7. x says:

    seems to me the legs should be the other way, (or it should be driven backwards). A lot of effort is wasted on the smooth curve sliding instead of gripping. If the whegs drove in the opposite direction then they would hit end first and have more of an initial gripping effect. Could even have a small set of “claws” a la’ the Animal movie above that were hidden inside the other half when in wheel mode, like this: >>

  8. Bill Zwicky says:

    Looks like they got their inspiration from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie.

  9. Transform And Walk Out: Robot’s Wheels Turn To Legs says:

    […] Robot’s Wheels Transform Into Legs [make] […]

  10. This Week in Robotics | IEEE Robotics and Automation Society says:

    […] YOUR WHEELS ARE NOW LEGS! http://blog.makezine.com/2012/02/03/robots-wheels-transform-into-legs/ […]

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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