This article was taken from the July 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by <span class="s1">subscribing online.
The first robotic hexapod that Matt Denton made was 30 centimetres long. His latest is a 1.9-tonne, five-metre-wide mechanical monster called the Mantis. "When I was nine, I saw The Empire Strikes Back and the AT-AT just blew me away," the Hampshire-based engineer says. "It became an obsession. But I always thought it would be great to build a really big one you could sit inside."
Denton was designing systems for controlling animatronics (his company Micromagic Systems' credits include Harry Potter, Prometheus and Edgar Wright's new film The World's End) when a client asked if he could build a 300-tonne hexapod ("Yes and no," was his answer). He started a more manageable version. The hydraulics proved most labour-intensive: "There are valves, piping, all sort of gizmos, all under computer control.
You're talking about a machine that uses 150 litres of fluid a minute." The Mantis -- which Denton completed last March -- is controlled by a joystick ("it's very easy to drive") and tops out at 1kph.
He sells custom-made robocrawlers for "high hundreds of thousands of pounds", but he's also treating the Mantis as an R&D platform. "It's inefficient and it's been a huge struggle. One thing that's come out of this is my love of the wheel. One of the best inventions ever."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
