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Stair-climbing Robot Built From R/C Car Parts
dpa writes "The ability to
climb and descend stairs (5M mpg) is one of the unexpected behaviors of this new home-brew
off-road autonomous robot platform. The robot has a custom chassis and uses standard suspension and drive components scavanged from old R/C monster trucks. Here is a
link to the build log, and here is a
link to a hi-res version of the video (20M mpg)."
This is *not* a remote control vehicle.
Although this robot is built from remote-control car parts, it is fully autonomous using a Motorola 'brain' and inertial navigation. It also includes ultrasonic object avoidance detectors.
I think you'd be fairly hard-pushed to find an 'off the shelf' vehicle that could do that autonomously over reasonably rough terrian.
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
well, it is actually a lot of fun to play with. Did you see the video of the robot dodging through the woods? It will do that same thing with a crowd of moving people, and you can chase it around and try to block its way. It's quite persistent. It did not occur to me when I posted the video that people would assume it is an R/C car. Hmmmm. Perhaps the word "autonomous" is not a widely understood term, more of a buzzword among robot builders. Not sure how else to say it, though. You really have to watch the videos to understand what its doing, I think.
To really climb stairs you need legs since stairs are designed for people. If you are interested in such robots take a look here: http://www.walking-machines.org/ (btw. additions are are welcome.)