You're looking at a walking, robotic 3D-printed hexapod that can see its terrain and is controlled wirelessly from an iPad.
Its master and creator is Matt Bunting, a robotics PhD student at the University of Arizona. Speaking to WIRED.co.uk at Maker Faire in Rome, the 28-year-old explained that he had originally built a robotic hexapod "for a class project" to "explore different behaviours between computer vision and locomotion".
"After the class I decided to give it a makeover with a 3D printer and I added an Intel Atom-based computer on the top," he said. "Then a few weeks ago we converted the computer to run on Intel Edison."
First shown off at CES in January this year, Edison is a computer system on a chip the size of an SD memory card. It supports Linux and includes a dual-core CPU, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE (low energy) and an integrated app store. "Currently I [also] have an Arduino board, which is just to plug in the USB at the back," says Bunting. "I can install libraries for computer vision tasks and it's in a very small form factor," he adds, speaking of Edison.
Bunting produced the 3D-printed parts -- specifically, the legs, body and head mechanism -- on a Dimension 3D printer from US-Israeli firm Stratasys, of which the enthusiast firm MakerBot is a subsidiary.
As for long term goals for his project and PhD, Bunting says "getting hired by someone would be pretty awesome" after WIRED.co.uk suggested Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory should probably get in touch. But for now his goal continues to be "to explore computer vision and connect that to robotic walking".
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
