Strandbeest - a Robotic Project

Overview

The idea for this project is about 15 years old. I worked in a kite store in Berlin/Germany and my former boss showed me the work of Theo Jansen, an artist from the Netherlands. I was totally excited about the way Theo Jansens Strandbeests walk complete self-sufficient and decided "sometimes...there will be a way to build such a creature!".

First steps

Some month ago I made the first steps with Arduino & Co (I built a Moody Useless Box). After the first project, the idea to build a Strandbeest came into my mind and so I started a research an how the mechanic of such a Strandbeest works. I found some videos on Youtube and some simple drawings. Based on this stuff I began to draw and build my own Strandbeest.

I've made many mistakes and learned a lot by trial & error.

Trial and error

When I started, I decided to make the first steps with the electronical part. So I bought some components, like a motor- and a Bluetooth shield and played around a little bit. But I wasn't lucky with these (cheap) components and found some code examples on Lady Adas Site. Then I bought motorshield and Bluetooth shield at Adafruit and after some testing and thinking (and testing and thinking...) I was able to control 2 motors with an iOS app (also brought by Adafruit).

After that I started with the mechanical part. It was a long way, I spent many hours with my Proxxon tools, wood and aluminium.

After three weeks of research & development the project was done and I had my own Strandbeest!

And here it is:

I also build a complete website for this project (in German - sorry) with much more images, infos how to start with Arduino and more.

I hope, you enjoy my work!