When a crab’s pissed it walks forward – Ricky Gervais

Killtron 7000 is a biologically inspired crab walking robot designed by me and my team at the University of Victoria back in 2011. The success of the robot was determined by how well it can autonomously navigate between several walls and how much weight it can carry. Many thanks to Aaron Gehman, Andy Berry, Tina Hung, Joshua Yin, Eva Sun and Yuto Hori for making this possible. This is my first autonomous robotics project I’ve done using the Arduino so it will always hold a special place in my heart.

The Mission, Should You Choose to Accept it

For a successful performance, Killtron 7000 must autonomously navigate itself around several walls while carrying the maximum amount of payload. The size of the robot must also fit the size envelop of 8″ by 5″ by 5″.

Doing the Crab Walk

If you haven’t noticed already, crabs have a funny way of walking from side to side. It turns out that this kind of motion perfectly compliments the requirements of the project because the robot is able to walk forward while facing the wall the entire time. The gait motion of the robot was created by using 2 geared motors with legs attached to a gear train.

Result

Awesome destruction video.