Spider Leg

The reason for the name should be obvious.

This leg simply looks like a spider leg.

My intent in designing this one was to produce

a leg that would be capable of climbing.

The insert marked extreme positions on the drawing

shows the range it has. It has the same

degrees of freedom as most two motor

legs but with two extremes range.

First is it can lift the robot well upward above its normal walking level

This can be useful for looking over obstacles

or keeping the robot level on surfaces that

very rough and uneven.

Click on thumbnail to view larger image

The second is the ability to reaching up high.

Combined with the first, and with the right type of

sensors,some obstacles could be stepped over and

even extremely rough, uneven terrain could be

traversed without the loss of stability. In fact I believe

that given the right motors, and leg size, it could climb

stares without to much trouble.

I've considered coming up with some

type of  grasping mechanism to be

mounted to the end of the leg to allow it to lift and move.

That way it could double as an arm with a hand.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.