First Hardware Prototype of Skippy
This page describes our first prototype, which was designed by Roy and
Federico, built by Federico, and programmed by Antony and Federico. It
was made in two stages: first the head, then the rest of the robot. The
photos on this page were taken by Federico and appear in
his PhD thesis which
contains more information about Skippy than you will find here.
Clicking on the small photos below will get you bigger ones with annotations
and other details.
Skippy's Head
(operational in late 2021)
Skippy's head consists of the head frame, battery pack, brain, IMU, crossbar
drive and crossbar. By mounting Skippy's head on stilts, it becomes
either: (1) a reaction-wheel pendulum when fitted with the three-arm crossbar
(left photo), or (2) a general double pendulum when fitted with the one-arm
crossbar (right photo). We did a lot of balancing experiments with this
machine before making the rest of Skippy. See publications 28, 33 and
34.
Complete Skippy
(operational in 2023)
This picture shows our complete first prototype of Skippy. Clicking on
it will get you a much bigger picture with lots of details. Skippy
appears in Chapter 7 of Federico's PhD thesis, along with information about its
design and component parts. There is one video on
the videos page showing Skippy balancing on its
springy leg, making small hops, and falling over a lot (without damage).
This prototype is not able to make high hops because it is too heavy (5.3kg
vs. design target of 3kg).
Skippy's Head
(operational in late 2021)
Complete Skippy
(operational in 2023)