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