About the A-Pod Walking Robot
The A-Pod robot's body is insect inspired. The angled legs provides additional range of movement. The three DOF (degree of freedom) leg design means the robot can walk in any direction! The robot has been designed to use 18 HS-645 servos for the legs and an additional 7 servos for the head and tail. It's truly amazing to see in action. This robot design was heavily inspired by the original A-Pod by Kåre Halvorsen (Zenta on the forum). Thanks, Kåre!
The Mechanics
The robot is made from precision-cut PVC and ultra-tough high-quality aluminum Servo Erector Set brackets.
Controlling the Robot
By offloading the servo pulse generation and sequence movement timing to the SSC-32 (highly recommended for multi-legged robots), the microcontroller will have plenty of power to do some really cool things. The Phoenix program is compatible with the BotBoarduino and allows the robot to walk with variable speed, in any direction (translation), or turn in place (rotation), or any combination of the two. The leg lift and ride height is adjustable as well as the gait walking speed. You can rotate the body in every axis. There are preset walking modes and gaits to choose from. All of these are accessible from the controller. We recommend the wireless PS2 controller to get the robot up and running quickly. The Phoenix code also supports a serial control mode for controlling the robot via a serial connection. The Phoenix code was written by Jeroen Janssen (Xan on the forum). Thanks, Jeroen!
Powering Options
The robot is compatible with the following batteries and chargers.
Chargers
> NiCad & Ni-MH Universal Smart Charger (USC-02)
Batteries
> 6.0 Volt Ni-MH 2800mAh Battery Pack (BAT-05)
Important!
To keep costs down we are not providing printed Assembly Guides. They are provided online, so you will need to print them when you order the kits. By providing the Assembly Guides online we can provide more detailed and up to date information than the old hardcopy method allowed.
