fairfolio
Saved Projects

Little Insect Project (Inspired by DARPA LittleDog Project)

CSEF · 2015 Electronics & Electromagnetics First Award

Vanessa Wang · American High School, Fremont, Alameda County

Overview

Objectives/Goals The LittleDog project was part of the DARPA Learning Locomotion program, which involved using a quadruped robot, LittleDog (constructed by Boston Dynamics), to walk through different terrains. The LittleDog is a college level project; the robot is costly, and the algorithm/programming to control the LittleDog is complex. The objective of this engineering project was to find an affordable (less than 100 dollars) and simple way to build a robot that would be able to walk through different terrains nearly as well as the LittleDog. Methods/Materials In this project, a robotic insect was made from off-the-shelf micro-controller and commonly available materials. The robot had to be programmed differently to walk through a gap, several stairs, and a section of rough land. Results The robot was able to walk through all the terrains without major problems such as tripping and unbalancing. The hardest parts of the project were making the leg sensors (used to detect the ground contact and programming the robot to walk through the rough terrain. Push-pull switches were originally planned to be used as sensors placed at the bottom of the legs. However, the robot was not heavy enough to push the switches so custom-made switches were made. Because the rough terrain was bumpy, the robot could not balance well at first. Programming to adjust the legs based on angle difference between the legs allowed the robot to be more balanced and stable. Conclusions/Discussion From doing this project, students will be able to learn robotics and programming and fully utilize commonly available materials to make robots that can perform near professional-grade functions.

Summary statement

This project uses an affordable (less than $100) and simple way to build a robot that would be able to walk through different terrains nearly as well as the LittleDog.

Help received

Dad helped buy materials

Awards (1)

Competition history

  • CSEF 2015 Electronics & Electromagnetics · Entry S0926

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google