​TrotBot is the culmination of our 3 year journey to design a new walking mechanism capable of walking on rugged terrain, spanning LEGO prototyping, to large-scale testing of our ideas by scaling up our LEGO TrotBot to a SUV-sized monstrosity.  

Tom, Ben, August and Alby of Team TrotBot

Our journey started in LEGO:

​TrotBot is in the mechanical walker category, like Jansen's Strandbeest and Klann's Mechanical Spider, where the walking action is created by mechanical linkages with a single degree of freedom.    Inspired by the gait of a galloping horse, TrotBot's linkage was designed to lift its feet high so they don't jam on obstacles, allowing it to traverse the rugged terrain found in nature - or in rock gardens:

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For instructions on how to build TrotBot in LEGO, see DIYwalkers.