Furbot

Furbot is the newest robot that George has been working on.

It is basically an insectbot as it is really a 6 legged walking robot.

Furbot got its name because Furcot's in the series of books by Alan Dean Foster are 6 legged.

A Walking Furcot?

A newest member of the brethren has recently been constructed, a six legged walking robot.

This has been inspired by the book on walking robot technology I picked up about a while ago at a local bookstore. They have hit upon the idea of using radio control servo's - controlled by a micro controller (Arizona microchip's 16F84 makes another appearance here) to provide the movement - the precision gearboxes and feedback arrangements within the servo's being a very cost effective method of achieving this

The legs and linkages are constructed from some aluminium strip and tube, and a number of nuts and bolts.

A PP3 and 4AA batteries provide the power, the AA cells for the servo's and the PP3 feeding a 78L05 regulator chip to power the micro controller.

No collision detection system has yet been developed, and the programming is so far limited to simple walking around, however A Devantech SRF04 ultrasonic rangefinder is fitted as eyes on the front, the rangefinder values being read by the PIC.