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 are two videos 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).