3D Printed Robot Dog Climbs Over Obstacles

[@Haza3137]

Man this guy is a super talented engineer.

[@ericon.7015]

With money. 😅 It's pretty experience to build this thing

[@travisash8180]

@FelinoFacho He kicked catdog !!!

[@needamuffin]

*skilled. Calling people talented downplays the time and effort it took to achieve this level of skill in any area.

[@Haza3137]

@@needamuffin true

[@garlicbreadbeans]

Skilled*

[@LucGendrot]

A bit disappointed to hear that there won't be an open dog v4, but still eager for your projects every week!

[@kingmasterlord]

sounds like a community project to me

[@g60force]

although I love OpenDog and yes it's sad that there won't be v4 he still has options to revisit for 3.5 me personally am Subbed for the E-Bird videos hahaha cuz that's what I want to build after he finishes the final version!

[@benchatfield3529]

OpenDog has come so far and it’s definitely been one of my favorite projects to watch on KZbin

[@sebula8001]

James's project is fully open source but the only one who can fully assemble it is him. Well done!!!

[@D4rkS7der]

Now I want to build it, when you mentioned this.

[@Abishek_Muthian]

Then again with the learning which comes from building open dog, One could gain good expertise in building robots.

[@sebula8001]

@@Abishek_Muthian Couldn't agree more 😄

[@antonliakhovitch8306]

If I understand correctly, part of the project's goal is to make it possible for anyone to make this robot. Hence, saying that the only one who can assemble it is him is calling that part of the project a failure. To that end, I think he's done a very good job on that goal. It's all off-the-shelf parts or FDM printed parts - even the cycloidal drive. All the off-the-shelf parts seem relatively easy to source and relatively inexpensive.

[@ericon.7015]

I could build it. But I don't have the money 😓😅

[@MrDoggss]

When real dogs walk, they use a 4 step sequence. Have you ever considered using a modified 4 step sequence vs. the 2x2 ? As fast as your joints move, it seems like you could reduce the tipping, or swaying, by only having 1 leg off the ground at a time. The modifications you made in this episode are amazing! Such a huge difference!

[@KrAvE4KaRnAgE]

OpenDog is such a good project. Awesome work James, keep killing it!

[@advanceringnewholder]

awesome woof

[@Jagnathbaba]

i thought you were gonna say keep Kicking it 😂😂

[@CuppaLLX]

you couldeven say its a good doggo. And im glad james is giveing v3 plenty of walkies

[@_Gecko]

Yes, this is what I needed at 1:00 AM, it’s not like I have a paper to write

[@strictnonconformist7369]

There’s only one paper that can’t wait, and you’re not putting anything you want to read on that one ;) 💩

[@newburypi]

13:33 "I don't really want to..." Glad to hear you haven't put an end to the evolution of Robot Dog. Many thanks for the inspiration. 😃👍

[@Green__one]

There just looks to be so much opportunity for more evolution here, I'd love to see version 4, or higher! What he's done is nothing short of amazing from a technical and gee-wiz point of view, but at the same time, the capabilities of the legs seem no more than could be achieved with a wheeled robot (MUCH easier!) the main reason to use legs like this is to be able to handle big obstacles, things like walking up a staircase. This robot isn't there yet, but I can see how it could easily get there with a bit more tweaking!

[@carpespasm]

From what I've seen he seems more interested in making OpenDog a way of demystifying the sorts of robots Boston Dynamics have made, and making a technologically close equivalent, but built at a budget that doesn't make military contractors cry. Sure he could burn another small mountain of time, cash, and effort making a V4 that'd maybe have some better specs, but with the project being more about making it have stable-self regulated motion that adjusts to it's environment and has enough power to move around without cheating with bungees or using rigid code with no IMU home boy has knocked it out of the park, and now with it released into the wild I expect we'll be past the "LOOK I DID A SPOT" clones stage in a year or so and have folks doing some Real Cool Shit with OpenDog derived stuff in short order. Good on ya James!

[@EnsignLovell]

This reminds me so much of the Boston Dynamics dog, definitely up there in my top 10 favourite projects you've done. I hope he's a good boy and gets lots of hugs. I feel like this sets a really good foundation for a AI robot dog, with the addition of some cheap sensors and cameras, you could do object recognition, avoidance, you could potentially even make it jump over obstacles if tuned properly (however dimensions may need changed a bit for that). Honestly, I would definitely get into this project myself if I had the time or knowledge.

[@alexandrsoldiernetizen162]

Except the BD one moves like a real dog, or more like a graceful cat, instead of a drunken sumo on all 4's.

[@EnsignLovell]

Its as if a whole department of professionals worked on it using careful maths and sensors to help it other than just stabilization. Bro come on, if you can't see the similarities you need to re watch video, this is a community project, it gives people a good start to improve on it.

[@alexandrsoldiernetizen162]

@@EnsignLovell Sure, fine, but no need to fangirl nutsack shine over the shortcomings and put it on a par with a $70k professional product.

[@brynparrott7361]

If you review the video "Robot Dog Autonomous Functions you can see that's the way he is heading. That project adds in a Jetson Nano which provides some AI functionality. It could be augmented by addition of further sensors such as Lidar, GPS

[@literate-aside]

This is so, so incredible. The most impressive 3d printed project I've ever seen.

[@JCUDOS]

My girlfriend walked by and asked "Why is that robot walking on magic wand tips?" I said "for friction" without thinking and we both laughed. 😂

[@GingePlaysMinecraft]

James making open source sex toys when?

[@Hellsong89]

@@GingePlaysMinecraft Isint that already a thing? Just take the leg part, adjust code and add off balanced motor inside the magic wand tip...

[@greenanubis]

Everything is a sex toy if you try hard enough.

[@GingePlaysMinecraft]

@@Hellsong89 I'm pretty sure the print lines on that flexible TPU wouldn't feel great on your junk...

[@JCUDOS]

@@Hellsong89 I assume it is. Wouldn't that fall under rule 34? Lol

[@vistuurco13]

Been following the project since the beginning, I can't imagine how satisfactory this must be looking back. Amazing work!!!!!

[@quakxy_dukx]

Do you mean satisfying? Satisfactory means good enough but not particularly notable

[@charlestaylor3195]

I don't know if you did it on purpose but, it was cool the way it managed to step to the beat of the music. I've never really heard somebody explain with such great detail, every movement takes a lot thought. Thank you.

[@terrysouthwood4757]

Remarkable and inspirational. The work you have done on your projects, has pushed the boundaries of what most people thought, could be done with 3-d plastic printing and off the shelf electronic modules. Your thoroughness in creating proof of concept and prototype models is exemplary.

[@TheLomsor]

I would really like to see a project where instead of classical tuning and control, Machine Learning would be employed. With most of your projects being described in a full 3D model, existing ML Models could be adjusted and trained on virtual simulations of a robot and then used in real life!

[@GirardNicolas]

Not very easy to tell the AI what is "walking properly", even if, I guess, it could be done, by combinating horizontal speed and keeping the back flat as a "success" indicator.

[@TheLomsor]

@@GirardNicolas Yes that's one of a possible option of the basics of training AI. I think though that it's ripe now for James to try his hands on it, as not only has the science come far but open tools are available and this exact problem has been tried and solved multiple times in different ways for years now. Of course, it's up to James if that is interesting to him. This is very related and shows how it is possible: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oZ-sq3egZrSWpdE And this is the cutting edge: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jn6Qo36KhN53lc0 And their robots have similar issues Open Dog V3 has like offset feet from shoulder joint.

[@richardsuckerson49]

Do you think a Jetson nano or other embedded ML chip would work, or would he need a dedicated computer to run the quadruped algorithms? I love this logical next step in opendog v3

[@TheLomsor]

@@richardsuckerson49 The hardware needs to be powerful enough to run the already trained algorithm. This usually scales with amount of data. With only internal data like the around 50 analog signals in the paper from 2020 it shouldn't need overly powerful hardware and Jetson Nano or other specialised hardware would probably even be overkill. Microcontrollers like most Arduinos don't fit for another reason though, the tools to run an algorithm need to be present for the platform. Anyway, it definitely seems like classical tuning is hitting more and more diminishing returns in projects, that's why it came to my mind. Also, state machines came to their limits for robot kinematics years ago, so I would advise skipping trying to go in that direction. This field can be a bit daunting if the tools and platforms are new to someone but most of them are pretty modern and there's documentation and communities and James already dived into that direction a while ago with vision applications.

[@antonliakhovitch8306]

@@GirardNicolas There are existing papers on this, it's been done quite well. Check out Two Minute Papers' channel if you want short summaries.

[@DSlyde]

Re-watching this 8 months later I'm still sad that there won't be a version 4. I loved watching the project develop and I think there is further development that could be done, but I also get that it could get stale

[@lesumsi]

This is incredible! The performance on natural surfaces looks really close to commercial robots! Congrats!

[@ashleyarundel3134]

Brilliant!!! I’d love to see an Open Dog 4 though! :)

[@theotherhive]

this is absolutely phenomenal your work is incredibly impressive and the fact it's all open source is truly amazing

[@danwood1121]

I'm amazed at how you manage to keep improving your robots, fantastic designs!

[@ClAddict]

Would be interesting to see it try a couple different gaits other than Trot. Could it handle a Canter or even a Gallup? Sample of different gaits: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hofZi36ZgKeHqsk

[@cem_kaya]

My thoughts exactly

[@kristijanoros7208]

not even Boston dynamics has done that yet lol

[@cozmo9017]

I think you could really nail the last few key details in one more iteration! I know these dogs are extremely challenging, but I vote you do one more hahaha. Wonderful work!!

[@metaphysicalArtist]

People are amazed by James's engineering skills and consider him a super talented engineer. They praise his open-source project, OpenDog, and express how much they enjoy watching its progress on KZbin. Some suggest improvements, such as using a modified 4-step sequence for walking and incorporating machine learning for enhanced capabilities. They appreciate James's work in pushing the boundaries of 3D printing and off-the-shelf electronics, finding his projects remarkable and inspirational. Many express their excitement and admiration for his continuous improvements and impressive designs. Some mention the resemblance to Boston Dynamics' dog and express their desire to see further development. Overall, they find James's work incredible and commend his dedication and skills. That said comes the BUT! We are All waiting for a OpenDog Version IV

[@jpsimon206]

This really highlights just what an engineering marvel the human body is. Even leaving out organ function, just the kinematics alone are pretty awe inspiring

[@HuntersMoon78]

Your 3D printed builds are truly mind blowing.

[@mrnlce7939]

You know one day it's going to kick you back. Great video. Keep up the good work.

[@grahams5871]

This is a fantastic project. It's starting to enter the uncanny valley where we start to judge it as a living creature which ought to have better control of its limbs. Now it seems clumsy, nervous, unaware of its situation and inefficient in its movements. I think you have good enough sensors and mechanics, but I think the software needs attention next. Why not start again almost from scratch with the software. remember the lessons you have learnt, factor out some fundamental things into common code, but start again with a new motion idea. Two sources of inspiration come to mind: 1) chickens and other birds have an amazing ability to keep their heads in one place. Explore a motion idea that aims to keep the position of its sensors as still as possible. e.g. when you lift one corner, it tries to make itself heavier by not pushing on that leg, and when that is not enough it straighens the opposing legs. 2) Cats seems to be the most sophisticated and efficient movers. Start again again and try to behave like a cat. This time optimise for battery life and energy expenditure. That bent leg pose feels hard to sustain (imagine standing like that for 5 minutes) Cats feel like liquid when you pick them up, and when they walk across your desk they know exactly where everything is and place their feet efficiently and never knock things over. Make it so that at any moment it does the most quiet, efficient and aware thing to get to its next goal. Make it walk over those obstacles without kicking them around.

[@luckiuable]

A lot of work has been done for this project. Respect

[@mrrustygray]

I find it the sign of human ingenuity, that a person can 3D print parts, cobble together some gears and make a robo dog, where Boston Dynamics spent millions and millions in R&D. Great Job. I am curious how long it took to print all of those parts.

[@mumblety]

This walks better than any of your other dogs! Looks great!

[@cho4d]

James can you tweak his gate to give him more ground clearance? I feel like you need a button that you press that just shifts to a "step over" walking gate where he maybe moves a bit slower and lifts his legs real high.

[@Green__one]

I was wondering that too, maybe just longer legs even? The main reason commercial robots go for legs is to be able to handle big obstacles like stairs, this robot isn't there yet. That said, what I see so far is absolutely amazing, I can't believe a hobbiest did this!

[@dekutree64]

@@Green__one Yeah, longer forearm/shin segments, less elbow/knee bend, and hips angled inward to put the foot under the hip joint axis should give much better performance. Longer stride and less effort from the motors.

[@karyjas1]

I think that it might have been a good plan to first program the inverse kinematics to support the robot as it moves via inertia. The legs should behave like a multidirectional wheel not adding any extra movement and letting it move with inertia. Basically only lifting the leg when its nearing the max range of motion of the leg and then putting it down on the opposite side with a distance from middle point under the leg to the edge of motion which depends on its velocity. The faster it moves to its maximum allowed velocity, the closer to the maximum range of motion in the moving direction should the feet be placed

[@mbk337]

This is truly incredible. Amazing work.

[@Mysda_]

This is very weird how much closer it gots from Spot in this video. It makes me hope that robots like that could be a lot less than 70k soon

[@403M4K]

Wow I love that robot, it looks heavy despite the light material. That's Fantastic

[@driftsamurai29]

I've been following this and your other projects for a few months now. I absolutely love all of your work! Its really impressive. Keep up the great work

[@piconano]

Your projects are on another level! Boston Dynamics has nothing on you. They should fear you...

[@WilburJaywright]

An excellent finale. Let’s see you in the next season project!

[@AstroCharlie]

This is an incredible amount of progress. I'm really impressed with how far you've gotten the robot to roll with a very straightforward control scheme. Have you explored implementing a gait engine? Are you trying to avoid adding software complexity or just trying to solve problems at the simplest implementation possible?

[@sightlok]

It would be very cool to see pressure sensors in the legs to maybe adjust for height differences in terrain.

[@bardenegri21]

An amazing project, quite a trip its been.

[@kingmasterlord]

4:48 something like rotating the legs so that they have push-up position shoulders? bulldog style

[@markstevensfpv3722]

Amazing work as always James 👏 Would love to see further development on open dog, it’s really cool!

[@hotends]

Impressive and a wonderful color too!

[@pssnyder]

Me *thinking quietly*: "Go home OpenDog, you're drunk." James: "It looks a bit like it's drunk." Well now I don't feel so bad about thinking that...haha. Great work as always James.

[@motor_misc]

Our cockapoo recognised it as a dog and started barking like crazy!

[@GunGryphon]

Excellent! I would be interested to see a digitgrade back leg version like a natural dog. You can still use the same number of motors, just use a connecting rod from thigh to ankle to move the foot.

[@dekutree64]

Yeah, it's always bothered me that nobody ever copies the obviously more successful 3-segment hind leg design, yet most biped robots use 3-segment legs when humans do fine with two (birds do use 3, but mostly for higher ground clearance for wings). Though I suppose it wouldn't really make that much difference since they're mainly better for running, and most robots can't run due to excessive weight and/or inadequate software.

[@Zand3rrr]

i dont think i could assemble this with my little experience, but it makes me want to try to design my own, more simple robot, and slowly work up to making something like this

[@krisbrooks4548]

Insanely cool vid as always good music too

[@TackerTacker]

11:13 Your fence looks like a texture error xD

[@DgtlCnsltng]

You don't need filtering on accelerometers, you need proper sensor fusion (6 or preferably 9 axis) so that you can discriminate linear acceleration, rotation and gravity. Adding more filter just also increase the delay as much, you are not going anywhere to eliminate oscillations. (I'm writing at the same time as watching the video, seems like you already thought about it ;) ).

[@theninjascientist689]

your videos make me look forward to every Tuesday!

[@hoah]

You could tune out oscillation by using logic to compare gyro out to control input and nullifying the difference.

[@likekkkkkkk]

Been loving this whole thing progress! It is so fun to watch you go through every step and overcome all the challenges. It has also made me think critically and come up with potential ways to improve any future iterations of openDog, specifically surrounding the design of the legs. I know that your version of a robot dog is supposed to be able to move forwards and backward relatively easily, with the front and back legs being mirrored, but I think taking a few notes from real dogs might help. In this case, I'll be comparing it to a golden retriever, as I feel it is a good general comparison (also the first high-performance dog I could think of): 1. The first thing I notice is the height of the openDog. In a golden retriever, the length of the legs in a slightly bent, stationary state, results in the height of the dog (paw to top of the body, not including neck or head) being approximately the same as the length of the dog (front end of body to back end of body, again not including neck or head). This should in theory help with control, and the ability to move around much easier. My thinking surrounding this is that the current version's stride length compared to the body length makes it difficult for it to move as effectively. Just to make sure I'm not crazy, I looked at Boston Dynamic's robot dog, and their body length is very close to the height of the robot, so this idea may hold so truth behind. 2. The second thing I notice is the ratio between the upper (thigh kind of area) leg versus the lower (calve kind of area) leg favours the former. In a golden retriever, the upper legs are shorter than the lower legs. The ratio of upper to lower legs is approximately 1:1.5. I don’t know how this could affect the way that openDog moves, with the different structural design concepts applied, but it might help with openDog's ability to handle moving at greater speeds. Again looking at Boston Dynamic's robot dog, they instead have a 1:1 ratio between the upper and lower legs. Additionally, I also noticed that some dogs also share this characteristic. So I can't concretely say if one is better than the other. But I still hold the belief that the lower leg should at least be as long as the upper leg. I don't have anything else to add, as my experience in this area is limited, due to limited funds to actually pursue engineering challenges (hopefully just for now), as well as still being in high school, but I feel these suggestions might either help with future iterations of openDog directly or indirectly. Again, amazing content! Keep up the great work!

[@beautifulsmall]

Well done James, very impressive, great stability, as good as BostonD's early versions which must have cost 10's if not 100's of millions with a whole team.No more dogs. What next, two legs ? Stair climbers, I like the snake format, or beatles, they are relativley successful, push legs at the back, balance legs in the middle, climbing legs at the front. Whatever you choose it will no doubt be very well thought out and executed. Like the idea of compliant drives.

[@brunselltorp]

starting to look alive! impressive work. =)

[@Jehty_]

If I understand it correctly the problem at hand is that (in the beginning of the video without the dampening) all the legs always extend all the way. So in order for the robot to be more stable it would need a way to tell if the leg touches the ground and not extend the leg any further. Basically you would need to add "feeling" to the feet. And if I am not mistaken you could add that feeling by measuring the current of the motors. As soon as the leg touches the ground and therefore puts mass on the leg the current of the motor should spike.

[@BromoDragoonFly]

You have the relations T = k * I and F = T/(L*sin x) but I think the problem becomes hyper-static. With four legs on the ground you would need 3 forces and 3 torques for each point of contact. At that point you need more data to solve for the forces. If you could hook up some strain gauges to the legs you can solve for internal stresses and external forces, so yeah, force sensors pretty much required IMO.

[@GameDesignerJDG]

This is amazing work!

[@stephanepiquemal8297]

That's an impressive project. Well done!

[@FelipeLenschow]

What if you put a pressure sensor on its paws (piezo maybe) or some current sensor on the motors (current will increase when exerting some higher force). When it senses that he touched the ground, stop the respective leg movement, correct balance, and go for the next step

[@JMB676]

Looking forward to next project. Great job so cool brother.

[@flomix82]

Would it make sense to add multiple stepping patterns for different move speeds, like horses have? when moving slow just moving one foot at a time, that way you could navigate really smooth without balancing issues. Right now you only have "trot", with mirrored diagonal pairs of legs, you could add "walk" for slower and maybe one of the running patterns for, well, running?

[@Dracomancer273]

Never thought I'd see a robot walk over obstacles like most humans walk over legos

[@jamespray]

11:14 James's fence looks like a rendering artifact 😆

[@BernardSandler]

I just want to cheer for the little creature every time I see it move!

[@31randomdude]

Why not use something akin to the bent lower legs of the v2 to offset the displaced hip joints? It wouldn't even require a full redesign, but the software might need some adjustment.

[@techpriestsalok8119]

Part of the instability is likely coming from the fact the “spine” is inflexible. Even just a single motor allowing the front and back to rotate relative to each other might help drastically. Although that would almost certainly require a fully new version so it isn’t a simple solution.

[@gro_skunk]

Could possibly use a small lidar on the front and rear of the dog to enable it to use some kind of primitive path finding to allow it to know when to take larger steps so it's not tripping over stuff.

[@Thrillbo341]

Have you considered the type of flexible blade foot you see on kangaroo boots or prosthetics? Could be another passive form of damping.

[@H34...]

It would be interesting to see it with a one foot at a time gait. You'd be able to slow the legs down I think which visually might look better even if it might be slightly less impressive on a technical level. I think it would be cool to add a load cell or pressure sensor in each foot, not for compliance but to be able to track where the center of mass of the dog is on the floor plane. That way you have some more data with which to decide where to place the legs and take steps for dynamic stability. Also, beware of kicking open dog, seeing as you've already armed it with a turret and all... Perhaps for opendog V4 maybe something smaller with just some super beefy RC servos? Theres some 30+ KGcm servos you could use on a dog maybe half the size, without any extra gear reduction. The mechanics would be simpler, and lighter. Might meet your goal of easily transportable and would be cheaper/easier to modify the mechanics like joint offsets, and let you focus on the walking algorithm.

[@jamesrcrypto]

Thanks James. What about something involving its weight carrying abilities? You did a load test on a leg so it would be interesting to see how it spans out with 4 legs.

[@spicynoodle8870]

One question I have is wouldn't it make more sense to only move the legs when it needed them to be somewhere? like it can't really stand still as it is it seems

[@Antichamberteam80110H]

Nice work using accelerometer data to stabilize the robot! Have you considered using aliexpress actuators for opendog 4? They're based off the actuator in the mit mini cheetah. I would suggest a RMD X8 pro or RMD X10.

[@laharl2k]

not sure if it would be practical but a neural network balancing system would be quite cool for the dog and easier to make as you dont have many inputs other than the sensors though you could add few more to help it. I bet boston dynamics is using something like that

[@Evilyoo]

How about using neural networks with reinforcement learning instread of manually programming the movement? I would of course require a working digital model of the dog but that should not be impossible.

[@OzAndyify]

Looks really good now! Please make some different gaits for this beast. I reckon a cat-like one leg at a time crawl would work great, and a canter would be worth a shot.

[@martylawson1638]

I think you can solve the rotation at slow step rates with kinematic cross-coupling of the motor torque. I.e. if the leg position and motor torque is pushing against the ground with 100N, then add enough torque to the shoulder joint to balance that 100N on the ground. Put another way, you have enough info in your robot to make a simple inverse model that takes leg position and robot weight and outputs an "ideal" joint torque. Add this into the output of the PID and then it will be doing less command tracking and more disturbance rejection.

[@Apchi112358]

Awesome Work!

[@JohnDuthie]

OD3 resembles a baby crawling. Amazing stuff!

[@dundeedideley1773]

Why is balancing on two feet not possible? The CG can be moved across the line that connects the two feet by moving the body front to back like when you were tuning the motion system

[@Lambda_Ovine]

It's never not going to be funny to watch these robots try to walk through obstacles and lightly kick stuff around

[@herval307]

You will have to refine your feedback loops but it's almost perfect! For the stairs you now need a Lidar....

[@JohnADoe-pg1qk]

TODO: Growling when being kicked.

[@another3997]

Very impressive, especially as it's largely 3D printed. Don't get me wrong, as a technical exercise it shows how he can can come up with some brilliant and very complex mechanisms, and apply them to a problem. Just because he can, and enjoys doing it. But that complexity is also it's biggest weakness. 12 big cycloidal motors, 6 controllers and a hundred bearings for each motor? But then he glued the silicon feet directly on to expensive carbon fibre tubes, rather than using a jubilee clip or a simple screw. And his "belt tensioner" was a fixed wheel that would have to be replaced as the belt stretched. Simple, cheap, spring loaded tensioners have existed since at least Victorian times. As the great engineerinv genius Colin Chapman used to say, "simplify and add lightness".

[@de-bodgery]

You have range of motion to lift or straighten the legs more right? Jumping, running, going over higher objects is possible right?

[@marthastewart8262]

Please make open dog four! We love open dog. Would you consider going smaller? Molded parts for gear assemblies? A belt through to the shoulder to articulate the knee driven in the shoulder housing. The whole shoulder assembly rotating on a carrier for the pitch control. And finally a counter lever roll assembly for the shoulder. I know it's identical to spot... But some problems just don't have a wide variety of ideal solutions. It's not possible to build a dog spots size 3d printed that will hold up to what use can throw at it. But it is possible to build one half his size. With as many single shelled parts as possible.

[@DaT0nkee]

How it behaves on real terrain? For example uphill/downhill on a pile of rocks.

[@CarsonTheArsonRat]

I can’t wait to see how this technology advances. My gf wants a dog in the future and I personally don’t like dogs, but with something like this and some AI to make it kinda just a Smart roomba I think that could be really cool

[@nyalldavis]

Soo cool, I wish ODrives weren't soo expensive, makes a big difference between a £200 actuator and a £20 stepper for accessibility for most hobbyists

[@SolarizeYourLife]

Can you build a beach beest with independent leg placement so it can walk over 'any' terrain, besides flat beach??? Rino pacifically...

[@czoknorris]

Habe you considered using hoverboard motors for opendog? They are amazing and have the torque to run stuff without added reductions.

[@MitchPleune]

Have you considered something like feed forwarding the motors ahead of time to preemptively correct for things like the hip torque?

[@FrankGraffagnino]

i'm a firm believer that dynamic robots of the future won't have control systems that are programmed and tuned... but rather will have neural networks where it is trained to walk (or whatever else dynamic motions it needs to do). Obviously this is much easier to train if you have a high-fidelity simulation and can run millions of runs to tune the network. But it would be really cool to see if you could do a project where just the raw inputs of the sensors go into a neural network with multiple layers and it is given a goal and allowed to try to learn its own algorithms for accomplishing each goal (perhaps with multiple factors being weighted such as time taken, power used, minimizing joint rates, etc.).

[@RuthlessMojo]

This would be perfect for an AT-AT Walker. That would be an awesome build.

[@jamesbeemer2477]

How do you feel about adding some kind of sway bar to help keep the weight flat because it’s having a hard timekeeping stable.not sure how you can add that in

[@kiiikoooPT]

Is there a reason to make it move the legs at all times? even when it is not moving anywhere? Is it for stability? Or is it cause is easier to keep track of the motion and to control it? Cause a normal animal don't move the legs unless if he is moving in some direction, only animal who does like this machine is the horse but is teached to do that, for Parades for style, not for normal walking...

[@Lozoot2]

James: kicks the robo dog _OpenDog will remember this_

[@FilterYT]

You are awesome James!

[@Alex-nl5cy]

Is there a reason that you use a 6dof sensor and not a 9dof one? Wouldn't it help with the oscillations instead of relying on damping?

[@mhdm]

It would be awesome if you could make it jump! First in place then more and more complex. How high would its vertical be?