Chen Liang's Strider's Linkage Walking Camera Bot Gets a Sleek New Redesign
Powered by a LILYGO TTGO T-Journal, this six-legged robot is a much sleeker creation than the original Strider Camera Robot.
Maker Chen Liang (陳亮) has released a guide to building a Strider's linkage robot equipped with a camera — providing remote control with a first-person view using a Hardkernel ODROID-GO handheld games console, built in the shape of a classic Nintendo Game Boy.
"This is the eighth iteration of me building the Strider walking machine," Liang writes of the project, which began with an earlier design published two years ago. "The materials required are very similar to Strider Camera Robot V6, just [with] a little bigger LiPo [Lithium-Polymer] batteries. This version['s] 3D model reserved room for IR [Infrared] sensors, [which] can help to make the robot more intelligent."
The Strider's linkage was originally developed as an alternative to Theo Jansen's famous Strandbeest designs, using ten bars per leg pair to eight for a Strandbeest — boosting efficiency and load-carrying capabilities. Where Liang's original design was wide and flat and carried an Espressif ESP32-CAM module for control and video work, the new V8 design is considerably sleeker with a rounded chassis and a new microcontroller board at its heart.
The 3D-printed robot is powered by a LILYGO TTGO T-Journal development board, housing an Espressif ESP32 microcontroller, with an Omnivision OV2640 or OV3660 camera module for the video. The legs are driven by two 4.3g servos with 360-degree rotation capabilities, and everything is powered by one or two 702024 LiPo batteries. One of the biggest changes in the design: a custom stainless-steel crankshaft, bent manually using a 3D-printed mold to get the complex shape right.
The robot is controlled from a Nintendo Game Boy-style handheld console, showing a live video feed on a color screen above a directional pad for direct control of its movements. The code running on the device is Liang's own creation, streaming the video in MJPEG format — though the hardware is an off-the-shelf ODROID-GO from Hardkernel.
Liang's guide to building your own Strider's linkage camera bot is available on Instructables, with the 3D print files on Thingiverse under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license.