Robot Centipede with Flexible Drive Train

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This is the next video about coming up with an idea for something I’ll eventually make big enough to ride on. I really want to make a giant rideable land-worm, and last year I made an eight-wheeled snake bike which bends to steer.
That had wheels but I’d really like to build something that can move in an unconventional way or walk on legs.
I’ve been experimenting with wave drives, the first one used a spiral shaped former inside a flexible track, and I tried a cam-shaft driven design a few weeks ago. At the end of that video I mentioned it might be better to turn all the cams around 90 degrees and use them to drive legs in a wave formation.
This leg mechanism is half of the walking mechanism I used in each unit in my omni-directional walking machine, so I decided that perhaps I should just use the whole mechanism and line a bunch of those up to make a centipede.
I got this leg mechanism idea from the DIY walkers KZbin channel which you should check out.
I want to make this machine four or five segments long and drive the whole thing from a single motor, so I’ve designed universal joints to link all of the sections, and a gearing arrangement to drive everything from one overhead drive shaft.
CAD & Code: github.com/XRobots/Centipede
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Below you can also find a lot of the typical tools, equipment and supplies used in my projects:
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Soldering Iron: bit.ly/2DrNWDR
Vectric CNC Software: bit.ly/2zxpZqv
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[@jamesbruton]

Install Raid for Free ✅ IOS/ANDROID/PC: clcr.me/JamesBruton_Mar23 and get a special starter pack with an Epic champion Kellan the Shrike 💥 Join a special Valentine’s Day-themed adventure ❤ raidlovequest.plarium.com ❤ with the Raid Love Quest to win some fantastic in-game and real life prizes 🎁

[@veloxsouth]

Raid? really?!

[@leerussell6536]

The company who make Raid also are the largest video poker machine manufacturer in the world (Aristocrat) I used to work for them and they say that Raid exists to gain future customers (the only other thing they make is gambling equipment and Raid is aimed at kids)

[@Eduardo_Espinoza]

Leave me alone raid!

[@ZorillaMyrid181]

@@leerussell6536 Ooh, really? Shame there's no proof of them claiming that, maybe that could get them into serious legal trouble for basically brainwashing kids into gambling. Honestly in-game purchases in general should be locked down on

[@Dalorian1]

I have a nice tax return this year, and Was planning on buying my First 3d printer next week... Can you please recommend me a good 3d printer?

[@T0DD]

The foot slippage at the front is probably because you have the bungees at the top of the segments instead of the middle between the two. Any motion that makes the bungees go taut reduces the amount of force the front legs can apply to the ground.

[@LegoDork]

I was thinkin' the head needed to be heavier. I hadn't considered the attachment points... How do actual centipedes work?

[@williamchamberlain2263]

@@LegoDork necromancy

[@eg0zb]

I would say its feet are not grippy enough

[@CharlesGriswold]

As if a robot centipede wasn't horrifying enough, you had to throw Raid Shadow Legends at us? Not cool, man. Not cool.

[@Woodledude]

Ahh, Raid Casino Legends. Always lurking around the corner. Like a giant robot centipede.

[@DrWhom]

Do you suppose he could join three of them together and make them eat each other's poop?

[@CharlesGriswold]

@@Woodledude That's going to haunt my nightmares.

[@Fogmeister]

@@Woodledude Raid Casino Legends would imply there’s a small chance you don’t just waste your money. 😂

[@Woodledude]

@@Fogmeister Actually what it implies is that RSL is a game literally designed by casinos as a way to not have to give people money as an incentive to gamble their money away :D Which is, uh, true by the way. Seriously, look up the details for the developers of RSL - Literally owned by the same companies that run casinos in Vegas. It's frickin' crazy.

[@ThatBum42]

I laughed out loud when I first saw it walking. It looks so proud, strutting around like that!

[@4thfrom7]

Thought it was just me. 😄

[@LordDragox412]

Look at those googly eyes that are on each segment and the shaft going through their mouth... That's not just a centipede, it's the inhuman centipede! D:

[@coryman125]

Reminds me of Wobbledogs, the way they walk around

[@Eagle3302PL]

I think if each segment had only one pair of legs it'd improve the turning radius and potentially reduce the slippage as there'd be more give between sections to settle on the ground. In the current configuration each front/back of a section is acting as a pivot so each section causes one side of itself to slip if it's not level with the sections it's joined to. With one pair of legs per section each section there would be no pivot until the universal joint is bent as far as it can.

[@nowymail]

Take a real centipede and observe one of its legs. The end of the leg (the foot) traces circular motions. Basically, the leg is like a wheel, but instead of being a whole circle, it has only one point of its circumference. And on the moment of contact with the ground, the leg does its job by applying pressure directed backwards, pushing the body onwards. Your robot is just a train of regular walking segments. In essence, it's almost the same, but gives quite different motion pattern (in fact there are two patterns overlaid, one for the front-facing legs, and one for the backwards-facing legs). But still a very good approximation.

[@homieboi5352]

This was basically showing how even without in depth research and a perfect design, James is just so good at building robots he made it walk that well regardless. Could it be better? Sure. But he did this as a first attempt practically going in blind and had such a creative approach it still worked fairly well in the end. Can’t wait for a version 2 or a full scale rideable one!

[@shottysteve]

ur like doing all the things people thought people would do when 3d printers came out. thats awesome.

[@ChongMcBong]

the googly eyes really bring it alive :) nice steering mechanism too

[@daglemj]

Having eyes on ever segment is giving me human centipede vibes.

[@Oosh21]

3:14 - Alternate the side of spur bevels to cancel out the direction or rotation changes.

[@bradley3549]

You'd think someone who builds so many mechanical contrivances would have realized that straight away. Especially when the consequences of getting something wrong mean hours and hours more 3D printing parts...

[@Oosh21]

@@bradley3549 We all overlook things right under our noses on occasion and it's often harder and slower to build something simple instead of just adding bits until (kinda) works.

[@LynxColeman]

I love watching these types of videos. You can see how much work he puts into his videos.

[@Dalorian1]

@13:00 The reason downhill is working better for your design, is becayse you are using gravity to assist your traction. You need to add more then 5 axis for the feets mechanical connections. Liek i said before, I think that 11 axis of rotation is the perfect foot pattern.

[@markedis5902]

Ten strand beasts in a row with an armchair on top decked out like a throne! King of the walkers!!

[@shykitten55]

3:20 about the overhead shaft and "if you didn't do it that way each alternate section would be in reverse..." Yeah, but that could be fixed by reversing/alternating which side the gear is on. Lego 42070 drive train does this to fix that exact problem.

[@jeremy_allison]

I would have loved to see how it handles with TPU feet! And my first intuition for steering was adding servos everywhere, but there is a very charming aspect to the fact that you can also only steer the front segment and the rest follows 🐛 Beautiful watching it walk around. Please, please, give it TPU feet in the shape of actual little boots 😄

[@jeremy_allison]

Also, seems it should be able to walk backwards? 😍

[@Aikano9]

Pretty sure those are TPU feet. Atleast that’s what I think those red things are

[@codywoodring]

That double universal joint is very satisfying

[@aerolus]

thats the cutest centipede ive ever seen

[@DanteYewToob]

Oh god James! What have you done! With the simple addition of googly eyes you went from robot centipede to human centipede! ONLY TWO EYES, JAMES! Only one set… please! Hahahaha

[@andrewcurrie101]

To me this is your most charming looking locomotion robot yet!

[@user-uo1yn4se8r]

the diy walkers channel is super underrated. great resource for all walkers

[@CrucialArmitage]

It absolutely does look like a happy centipede walking about.

[@thecactus7596]

Something about this little robot is very charming

[@neoneviscerator2330]

Pretty good design! If it were me though, instead of jumping straight to the Strandbeest mechanism, I'd try replacing the red linkages with some sort of suspension spring. Not only would that more evenly distribute the weight across all legs in contact with the floor and reduce the extent to which legs 'fight' each other, but it would also improve ride quality as any bumps would be able to be smoothed out by the suspension.

[@HardCoil]

Fantastic. Love that the steering is basically a little coach-man pulling the reins of the horse :D

[@0bsidianPrime]

Two design upgrades: 1st have only one pair of legs per segment, 2nd make each segment long enough to cover the stride of the feet, this will prevent any collisions while allowing a tighter turn radius.

[@Armadous]

Cutest thing James has ever made.

[@simonabunker]

This is amazing engineering as always, but they way they are all connected together is giving me a lot of human centipede vibes!

[@jamate]

For real. why did he add the googly eyes to all the stages? 💀

[@learnMax]

being able to raise/lower the first segment might help it out getting up/down/over obstacles

[@fraserbuilds]

amazing! I love the double universal joints. this might be the coolest one yet imo

[@Warrigt]

each segment with eyes is weird for a centipede. Can you imagine!

[@a531016]

I love the coaxial universal joints - that's a great solution that I never would have thought of!

[@freakinccdevilleiv380]

Excellent. The Googly eyes are always the best performance addition 👀

[@PseudoEmpathy]

Idea: Front legs lift higher than all others, in order to climb obstacles. Suspension system offering kinetic isolation between chassis and leg actuation system in order to make sure each foot is in contact. Asymmetrical greatbrain to mechanically compensate for the non linear actuation of each leg.

[@dfgaJK]

Surly the non-linearity of the stride velocity wouldn't matter if you synchronized the cams while assembling it. You could offset each section by 180 degrees to make each section step on alternating sides.

[@jamesbruton]

They are currently 90' out of phase, otherwise the legs jams together

[@thomasdassinger5091]

Nice work and the Strandbeest immediately came to my mind as well. I have a small one and it truly walks like a charm.

[@ClaytonRayRandell]

I love the wave like motion of the legs.

[@xs1l3n7x]

Pretty interesting as everything you work on. Having eyes on each section reminded me of the human centipede

[@brainsniffer]

I was looking for this comment! rofl. The eyes on each segment are a bit of a gaffe.

[@dustinwilson492]

This thing is awesome! I really like how modular it is and notice when you spread out the components over each section how easily you could add more sections as needed. This type of flexibility in being able to add and remove sections with each section having its own task so you could mix and match to suit the job is really cool

[@Corbald]

The googly eyes are *chef's kiss!*

[@morpheon_xyz]

Dude, this is a whacky and weird robot, very goofy to be honest, but the execution is very good in my opinion. I feel like even though it's not the best of walking robots, the experiment itself is quite brilliant, and for the basic concept behind it's construction, it did perform very well in my opinion. It moved as expected, and over all had a few really clever ideas to keep the sections locked in their respective axis, which helped the build out by quite a lot. Can't wait to see what form of revision you'll have on this for improvements before attrempting a full scale build. Overall, this was a really satisfying build for me 😌

[@desertsoftime]

It would be great to see some direct comparison, competition, and combat between you different walking robots. Battlebots style.

[@rix0r222]

lol the eyes on all the segments give it a real human-centipede vibe

[@mickphillips9135]

a few things about grip , roughen the feet surface with coarse sandpaper , print softer feet like a cat or dog paws , an array of bubbles to increase surface area when compressed.

[@Core-1948]

Technically it would be a millipede, as centipedes have one leg per segment and millipedes have two legs per segment.

[@Hephera]

definitley think the strandbeest style leg is a better choice when it comes to building the ride-on version. should make for a much smoother ride with less up and down bumping

[@I2ed3ye]

this is my favorite aesthetic to a project yet

[@koleoidea]

If you run the steering cables through some 3d printed channels on the 4 lateral corners you might be able to get more steering authority, as well as the ability to steer up and down for slopes. Perhaps you could make the center segment capable of pulling the front two segments for steering instead of just the one 🤔

[@Mr.Smothers]

It looks so proud of it’s little stride when it walks

[@bow-tiedengineer4453]

for steering, maybe run an elastic string on either side from the front all the way to the back, through loops on each module, with the servo winding the string up on a spool to tension the entire side.

[@AnInnocuousBlueCube]

Wait wait wait, if you built this full-scale you'd be controlling it with REINS?! That would be AMAZING.

[@ZiggityZeke]

why do individual sections look so cute omg

[@JohnDlugosz]

In entomology, a centipede has one pair of legs per body segment. You have two pairs of legs on each segment, so you have a mechanical millipede.

[@lady_draguliana784]

Perhaps you could make the vertical struts of each leg out of spring steel and Curve them into C shapes with the openings facing forward, making the "feet" have more contact with the ground while also adding a suspension action for a more comfortable ride?

[@TDGalea]

The googly eyes were the main addition that got everything working, weren't they?

[@etiennecharron7431]

The reason the feet are slipping when the robot is turning is that universal joints do not transfer a constant velocity when angled. Therefore any amount of bend in the robot will cause all the feet to slip as they average out the forces.

[@stoatystoat174]

Universal joint inside a universal joint for a good reason is very satisfying thing to see 🥰

[@riccardo1796]

The modules look so cute

[@andymouse]

Looks great !...cheers.

[@BioshadowX]

The individual sections are adorable. The whole thing together though.... horrifying. Incredible as always!

[@dandupaysdegex]

It's always better than a human centipede.

[@alexorsmthnidk2449]

Having something big enough to ride on with a strandbeest could be cool, but i did find a much more mechanically simple mechanism called chebychevs lambda (plantigrade machine). They could possibly work quite well to power your centipede. another idea is to maybe have 2 separate driveshafts for differential drive, to make it turn better.

[@Dalorian1]

@11:00 You made a human centipede bro.. Why do they all have eyes eating each others bums??? LOL

[@ThomasAndersonbsf]

seems like a controllable clutch system would allow it to control how fast the cams are moving, so it can move one side of the legs faster than the other for turning (like how tracks moving different speeds on a tank will cause it to turn one direction or the other)

[@thefestivemedic]

Amazing and interesting stuff as always, cams and legs always reminds me of combat-robot "pitter patter" shufflers or even some of the other designs in the sport but you probably already have made a similar mechanism to before, also curious do you just thread into the printed parts?

[@patdesse6693]

Wonderful !

[@gadlicht4627]

You could thread string thru holes/rings on one side and have motor connected to pulley system and same thing on other side. By pullying or releasing string you can curve whole bot with two motors making it turn

[@paulsaunders5555]

Have to admit it mad me think the same way. Strings like mussels on either side and under and over. So the cure could go tentacle style left

[@rampapandiontinling]

That's what came to mind for me as well. :)

[@freakinccdevilleiv380]

I think each universal joint adds a distortion in the rotation while bent. Amazing it reaches the last one without the legs getting jammed up.

[@jamesbruton]

It will do in velocity, yes - I considered a constant velocity joint, but it was overcomplicated

[@mindrage92]

Hmm, something that would be cool is if you could try some designs that work underwater as a submarine / seabed walkers. Would give you some more freedom to try out out more 6 axis movement.

[@AJ-Palermo]

Anyone else think it looks like the giant caterpillars from the Maple Treeway course in Mario Kart?

[@anthonymuccillo]

Would be cool to scale this up! Make a robot drawn carriage 🤠

[@daniellclary]

Your steering is like having a basic robot ride on top of your centipede robot. LOL

[@dacolib]

I love the multiversal joints

[@RealAndySkibba]

What an awesome project

[@Rony_Tube1]

This centipede is so cute🥺🥰

[@mundanestuff]

This is pretty funny (of course, it's good engineering too!) but the funny part is the little arms pulling the reigns, like the second horse in a team directing the lead horse, delightfully absurd concept.

[@realmofrandom3696]

something that may help is having the drive cams in the same position on both sides rather than staggered, if both sets of legs are in sync then they lift up at the same time and drop at the same time, in theory it should reduce vibrations and make it ride smoother, at well as make it easier for it to get over obstacles, if you look at a real millipede walking it lifts and moves its left and right legs at the same time

[@dumbtex6107]

I would love to see a wall climber version of this maybe using little suction cups on glass

[@peter360adventures9]

Awesome.

[@Simple_But_Expensive]

Now collaborate with Colin to build a pony size one out of steel. Use a scooter seat for a saddle. I would love to see you ride that!

[@Dalorian1]

@0:20 If you add weights to the legs in that spring mechanism, and make the legs able to pull against the weight its holding one at a time, then i think it might work better...

[@santosvella]

I like this one. Well done James.

[@vell0cet517]

Can you imagine how cool it must be for any kids that live in Jame's neighborhood?

[@neilredelinghuys3263]

this made me smile! very cute😁

[@philippklement7490]

that looks so sweet

[@hohenrover5002]

Maybe the motion of the feet to the front and to the back of each section causes some of the problems with slipping. You could try it with only the front legs.

[@jeremystott8188]

Saw the first googly eyes - oh how cute. Saw the rest of the googly eyes - oh god!

[@C1Ansy]

Universal joints!

[@IgorNV]

The fact that it's steered literally by pulling reins is amazing lol You should definitely put a little robot up there to do that.

[@christiaang]

You could make all the pieces steer with only 2 servos in total. Just make the cord alongside both sides of the hole thing, attached true pullies.

[@slabua]

Inception joint is genius

GREAT WORK

[@zephyro76]

nightmare fuel, i love it

[@olestampevestergaard4746]

Please try a different leg mechanism on this bot, the strandbeest one has always been so fascinating to look at

[@Dalorian1]

@5:40 you have 5 points of axis on your legs for each transmition. I think you should improve it to 7 or more.... Personally, I think 11 points of axis works the best.

[@dalkgamler]

Amazing

[@dynorat12]

Love it

[@moth.monster]

Funny little guy i love it

[@raztaz826]

End of "Raid Legends" at 7:52

[@VideoStefan17]

cool!