How I Built a Walking Star Wars Droid
Ғылым және технология
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This project is based on some Star Wars Droids which Disney Imagineering have had walking around Galaxies Edge Theme Park. Obviously they have far more resources than me, and they trained their robots in a simulation before building them. Yeah I built mine in a few weeks.
In the previous video I built a very simple pair of legs with only four motors, The Star Wars Droid could bend each leg but that was it, so it was like tipping a box onto its edges.
This time I added extra joints to the hips of the Star Wars Droid as well as it's head, and added the extra motions to make its hips sway.
Thanks to ROBOTIS for the Dynamixel servo: Check out: www.dynamixel.com/
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Пікірлер: 279
I really hope the phone continues to get bigger lmao
@urownpersonalgod
3 ай бұрын
So do I, lol
@needamuffin
3 ай бұрын
I love it. So impractical but a good bit and more than just a prop because it's actually functional.
@marksilverman
3 ай бұрын
maybe James is getting smaller?
@meribor
3 ай бұрын
Maybe hit up Dom Joly from Trigger Happy TV and ask to borrow his giant cellphone
@meribor
3 ай бұрын
@@needamuffinThe cable was unplugged, iirc
Pv case has gotta be the most random small marketed ad ive seen on KZread 😂
@SprocketN
3 ай бұрын
It has appeared on a lot of videos I watch. Does anyone watching this video install solar on an industrial scale?
@MushookieMan
3 ай бұрын
@@SprocketN It's me. The ad is for me. I told them no already
@user-tm4jy2zw8b
3 ай бұрын
Agreed
@ZenHulk
3 ай бұрын
Ahh, how about AG1 that had every channel that filmed outside drinking the green death liquid that was so bad the sailing channels stopped advertising it, one saying it smelled so bad and taste so bad i rode the toilet.
@---l---
3 ай бұрын
I mean, I use AutoCAD Civil 3D everyday as a civil designer. And I know people who work on high demand facilities, such as data centers. So, not too far off.
This is really impressive for just a couple weeks. It's got some quite sassy poses, too.
@Gregulations
2 ай бұрын
Yeah this guy is awesome at electronics. Unlike me haha
The switches-in-the-feet idea reminds me of how velocity is determined in musical keyboards. Each key has a pair of contacts that make connection one after the other, and the timing between the two correlates to how fast the key is pressed. Might be worth looking into.
The way the head moves reminds me just a little bit of those videos of chickens keeping their head in place while the body moves. Actually the whole build is somewhat chickenesque, in size and shape. Pretty cool!
"My robot does really weird things" Sounds like the opening scene of a dystopian SciFi horror movie.
@madcatmk213
3 ай бұрын
*terminator theme starts playing*
.. Okay that phone gag is getting larger then life and I am here for that!
something about the way it moves is just adorable, he's even cuter than the originals.
You need to make a droid that follows you around holding the phone for you!
@Gregulations
2 ай бұрын
Or just a big phone that walks arround following him XD
Noticing that your table is wobbly, trying it on the floor to see if it works better on a stable surface, and then finding out that it only works on *wobbly* surfaces is hilarious XD
I think the waddling/shuffling motion would work really well for a GONK!
@goblinpiper
3 ай бұрын
Right! I was half expecting him to put an upsidedown trash can on it at the end and call it a success!!
Brb waiting for the video where he needs a crane to hold his phone
@Gregulations
2 ай бұрын
I think we need to start a petition to make this happen
James: "I'm not too unhappy with this for two weeks work." Me: Wondering if I could build even just leg and if the tech i used to build it would even be relevant by the time I finished.
These robots you make are awe inspiring James. I can't wait to try something like this myself with the kids.
Loving the giant phone James! Really cracked me up 😂😂
Amazing project as always.
Strict adherence to linearity and angularity. Between the bearings and motors there is plenty of inspiration toward circular, spherical and other non-linear opportunities, but this feels more like adding gears and axes of movement that ultimately just reinforce a cubic vertical/horizontal-only palate. wobbling back and forth as a kind of cute side-effect that can approach a form of walking is what we get.
I always thought it would be neat to make a 6-DOF "arm" that can crawl like an inch worm and collaborate with others to do complex tasks. Something like the "microbots" in Big Hero 6. You can imagine them having interchangeable actuator mounts on either end so they can switch out graspers and other tools. You could also imagine six of them connecting to a tool box or something and walking it around like legs. My dream would be to have these things be able to build an unbounded volume with both additive and subtractive manufacturing. I'm sure the software for choreographing such a swarm would be crazy complex.
@jcraigie
3 ай бұрын
Sounds like the coolest evolution of Canadarm2 on the ISS.
@crackedemerald4930
3 ай бұрын
the code could be simple, some simple rules the arms could follow. kinda like booids.
At @10:30 I was like, maybe you should try a PID-controller and BAM! Your next sentence was "I'll use a PID-controller..." Love your videos and how you gradually solves problems throughout your projects, making them more and more complex!
You're going to get hired as an Imagineer soon
This is funny because I said to myself at the beginning of the video that you should probably program and test it on the floor rather than the table. And turns out at the end it only worked on the table and not on the floor. I had a little laugh.
@godlugner5327
3 ай бұрын
You'd like refrigeration videos, it's like a reverse stove that sucks heat out of things to boil the pot of refrigerant 🤯
10:25 got me laughing my ass out because of that bots posture.😂
You really need a larger, wobbly table
If you want to eliminate gear backlash, copy what's used in the head drive of many optical drives. One of the gears is two thing gears in a stack, with a spring that causes them to rotate slightly in opposite directions. Even if the spring collapses during high speed movement, when the head slows to tracking speed, the spring spreads the teeth to eliminate backlash. A robot foot idea I've had kicking around for ages is a passive locking design for rough terrain. Without weight on the foot, springs hold it perpendicular to the lower leg. As the leg sets the foot down, the foot passively tilts in 2 axes to match the surface angle. As the full weight of of the robot presses down, the tilt angles of the foot lock. Just above the 2 axis tilt would be a fore-aft joint with springs just stiff enough to allow the bot's momentum to tilt forward over the foot. That joint would also have a clutch to control the ankle speed or to lock in place to keep the bot upright when it's not moving. Best stability would be with one leg slightly forward and one slightly back. The foot tilt axes could have angle sensors to feed information to the walking control. I figure that robot walking should work from the foot upwards. Put a leg forward and let the foot come down then take data from the foot to adjust the knee and the hip. What I've seen in most robots is a "dumb" foot the robot stabs at where it calculates the ground should be then it reacts to various sensors telling its controls which way it's falling over. A quadrupedal robot can get by with four feet it can treat as simple single points of contact. A bipedal robot with flat feet can handle flat surfaces, or uneven surfaces that are a bunch of flat surfaces of various heights. What I've seen of bipedal robots on uneven terrain that's made of angles or curves is they don't stop and stand on such surfaces. They either keep moving forward or "dance" by constantly pumping their legs. Taking input from foot angle sensors and having ankles that can both tilt in different axes and lock in place would enable steadier uneven surface walking and stable, motionless, standing. In my much younger years I lived on a 2 acre property with areas that were far from smooth. I used to run across them in the dark and never fell or twisted an ankle. I managed that by keeping my ankles loose, letting my heels land first then allowing my feet to flop down and conform their tilt to the ground. One I sensed my forward foot was planted I'd tighten up the ankle and allow my body weight and momentum to lever forwards while I picked up my rearward foot to swing that leg forward to repeat the cycle. I was quite the logical thinking teenager. :) Another thing I did was ditch running. About half the property was a grassy hill slope with a flood irrigation ditch along the top. the sides of the ditch were at about a 45 degree angle. I came up with a technique where I'd run with left foot on the right slope of the ditch and right foot on the left slope. I'd pull my rearwards foot outwards just enough to clear the other leg then swing it forward then push back across in front of the other leg. For me it was a fun and quick way to move along the ditch, almost self guided like a train track. Why did I do that? Because it was fun, faster than walking in the bottom of the ditch putting one foot in front of the other. I was also *that kid* who in PE class when it came to standing on one foot could just stand on one foot while the rest of the class was flailing their arms and free leg about, trying not to fall over. I was the shortest and lightest kid who could just manage a 12 minute mile run and was too light to compress the springboard even a micro-inch. How light? I could stand on top of a perfect, empty, 12oz soda can without crushing it. For fun I'd carefully stand on a can then give it a gentle tap with my other foot to make it collapse.
I used your Astromech project to start my R2-D2 however many years ago that was. Might be time to build this lil guy next.
This is fantastic work. Well done, James! 👏🏻
if you give it wings it'd be a robot chicken, and I can't unsee it.
I just wanted to say Thank you James for introducing me to 3d printing and showing me that building an R2D2 was possible to build in this manner. As you can imagine it's taken a long time to learn and then discover Mr Baddeley. But it's you who sparked off my long journey and I'm finally nearly there after 4 printers and several failed attempts. And I've always wanted to thank you for helping me to finally bring my dream into reality.
Can't wait for the "I built a robot to hold my phone because it got too big" video series...
@wurstelei1356
3 ай бұрын
I think he already got a robot that has cam+mic and wheels and follows him/his face.
Thats awesome! I really liked the Star Wars droids/Robots - its really cool to see an open source version of them :)
great video as always james!
Thank you for making this series! You inspired me to try and make a walking robot similar to yours for my robotics course.
There are only a few people I trust with robots. You are certainly one of them.
Simply amazing... I love your videos! Keep on going!
oh, this rocks! best project yet, nailing it 😎
Pretty neat! Thank for the excellent work!!
impressive design in this timescale Thanks for sharing your expirences withe all of us 🙂
Yes mate this build is exciting. I'd say you can run with this mission for a long long time. Two thumbs up!
You microphone went up to a new level of ridiculousness! Love it!
Excellent video, great project - I'd honestly love to see what you could manage making this style of robot using your cycloidal drives, or at least something more tune-able. It might not be the most practical - but it's a very characterful robot, and I can see situations where it could even be useful.
That droid looks super cool, and I can only imagine the code and math behind controlling all that! You've made quite the land walking robot, but with the design of the feet, it feels like it shouldn't be too hard to retrofit them with skate blades and get it to move around on ice! Especially with the new leg servos, I think it has all of the necessary movements to balance properly!
This is so cool !!! It's like a super power to spawn an army of adorable machines. You're awesome Sir.
Really looking forward your take on making a smaller cycloidal drive
Disney really should hire you, because what took Disney several months and lots of top of the line engineers and unlimited budget to build, you made that alone in just a couple of weeks with limited resources !
My favorite engineering channel
So awesome , love it
I really love this robot - fantastic work! Disney really struck something very loveable with those droids. I would love to see you do another spin of this design with the brushless/compliant joints, then spend another episode diving into the kinematics and puppeteering of the droid. Maybe even a fourth episode adding some of your earlier Jetson AI vision for some responsiveness!
As soon as I saw them showing at the Disney parks I knew you would be building them! Love it james!
I'd love to see this project continue, and overcome the instability problems. I thought one of the advantages of Dynamixels was that they could be backdriven and implement a 'virtual spring'. I also thought the user had some control of the PID parameters, enabling the 'rigidity' and damping to be varied. I've never used them, so I could be mistaken. There is also a possibility to build mechanical springiness and damping into the leg structure.
lmao at the giant red phone at the beginning
Within a few videos that red phone will get so big it wouldn’t even fit in the house anymore
Great work! Big fan of your channel. I would recommend you use a Kalman filter or a complementary filter to fuse IMU data.
Haha he built a table dancing robot that wiggles it bum, where do I put the the $5 tips 😂
Great video. Amazing how you can get really close to gettting something working, but that last little 5% can be a right PITA. Maybe get Robotis/Dynamixel to take on the cycloid drives as a product!
@jamesbruton
3 ай бұрын
They are - the Y series which come out next year
Looking great overall! & I'm sure nature does all sorts of dirty hacks too ^^
Hello from New Zealand James! Your channel has me captivated every new thing you build! Your cheap hack worked perfectly for the balance and made me want to ask if you considered having either something in the head moving on the other axis or maybe adding tilt axis to the head to help in the catching of the sideways issue? Anyways carry on your awesome work can't wait till the next vid!! :)
Thanks for sharing.
Excellent work!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉❤
You could try mounting the gears on springs. Some side to side inertial dampening with the head would probably be good too. Cool project. 👍
So cool!
great video
Buff Engineer approves of this video.
@Gregulations
2 ай бұрын
And scrawny ones too
Hey! Love the content, have you ever thought about making a car suspension with the cycloidal drives and tune the motors to absorb more load in off road mode and less in sport mode?
it looks so cute crouched! though I must say I think it being crouched would allow for more than just looks; I don't know a lot so of course I'm trusting you know better but not only would full steps in an arc be theoretically possible if the range was used from there, but the lower center of balance might make it more stable. In the end I just think it looks cute with bent legs though :P
For Robtis sake, give the man some more servos.
I know Disney have all the money, but I'd love to see you continue with this and eventually recreate in your loft what they managed with all their resources.
I feel like it kinda ruins the magic when you see the ones at Disneyworld and there's a dude with a giant controller just standing right behind them
James, hijacking this new video to get a proposal through to you: How about a vaccuum cleaner that follows you around, so you don’t have to tug on the hose all the time. It should be omnidirectional (without the wheels collecting too much dust) and avoid obstacles. Seems like just up your alley and would be extremely useful!
love the comment that it is alive
Very cool.
This is awesome work. Have you thought about switching the head movement axis to side-to-side so you can damp the rocking with head movement? Similar to TIDs used in skyscrapers?
Learn sooo much from your videos Dude! Thank you! If only the world was run by engineers and scientist! 🙂
Wow... you made it in couple of weeks along with filming and editing video , when for disney, it took years of research with rather high budget and a big team of engineers... This is on another level of impressive... also i really wish you would try building open dog 4... something that is comparable to spot....
At 12:00, for a "dirty hack" that does an awfully great job of dampening the oscillations. Honestly I think you're selling yourself short there, damping, and active damping isn't simple. I think switches might be too binary for ballance. You might get some crude jerky sense of ballance but for a dynamic sense of ballance I think like you discovered with opendog, back drivability and motor current reading is best.
I am very impatient to see when you going to make an AT-ST !!!!
Wow i loved this one little robot. I'll take 4.
as an idea, try putting the IMU in the head and then attempting to keep the head stationary. This is (roughly) how humans keep balance via the fluids in your inner ear and, if I had to guess, it allows you to easily and accurately account for small micro-vibrations/misalignments and essentially acts as a high-pass filter for physical noise. In other words, if you constantly try to keep the head stationary using *_just_* the neck motors then if you can't keep it stationary you know you need to use the leg motors to account for the remainder of the inaccuracy. Actually programming this would be a bit tricky and the naive approach would run your leg adjustments at a decent latency as you try to look at the past to try to figure out what portion of the readings are new head-wobble or old body-wobble, but hypothetically it could work.
Awesome build. Any updates on the Open Dog project?
Every day am shuffling!
The moment it started and I saw the phone I thought "oh you cheeky bastard", also as always amazing work
Could you mount the IMU into some soft mounts to filter out the vibrations mechanically? And what about doing FFT analysis on the noise and seeing if there are any frequencies you could apply a notch filter to?
What if you make it walk slower but longer steps. You could make it lean over to the opposite side of the leg it lifts and time it for when the feat hits the ground. Just like how a human does. Basically make it almost able to balance on one leg while the other is moved. Also the feet should be wider to minimise the sideways tipping. Then it would not rock back and fourth as much.
Bring the droid to Makers Central!
Awesome.
Walking with attitude 🤩
Rideable mechanical horse when?!
Meshes. Binding is when it goes bad and jams up.
i look forward to potentially see this ting running around EMF and seeing that phone on CuTel
Nice build so far! Question I’ve had: What extruder do you use for your larger nozzle prints like 1.2mm? Your useful ROS robot videos got me investigating larger nozzles than 0.4mm but I doubt my stock tronxy setup can do the flow 1.2 would need.
birds and dinos are a good kinetic challenge, using bamboo sticks and rc car parts.
Could you run a loop of surgical rubber (latex tubing) as a shock absorber instead? - Have it act as a muscle tendon instead of a back driveable solution? (not just at the point where there is a problem I mean a loop that runs the length of the leg so thigh to ankle)
Very impressive - although one day I’d like you to be able to train the robot to understand when it is being pushed about and complain (or even slap back!) 😀👍
Can you make torso keep straight vertically, should help balance.
feet motors are super important there is a lot going on in the feet that I think you are missing.
Once this walking droid is finished the phone will be as big as ENAC
James. We want a proper dinobot and we want it now. You are the alpha dog mate I trust in you Also cheers from italy
@aJames Bruton - AWESOME 😎👍 🤖 I was just thinking... You could do the feet in two parts, a paddle ball at the toe end and a slightly rounded heel, at the heel end and use adjustable springs, you can wind in the right tensions 🤔 ... Maybe leaf springs for the ball of the foot 🦶 and maybe a bunch of rubber bands from the heel to under the knee, to tight ? Take some rubber bands off, too loose put some more, (attached by hooks on L & R servo's). And have some static rubber bands pulling the front of the foot up... Hmm 🤔 sounds like a lot, maybe for another project in the future 🎉 And in that case can maybe look at making voltage muscles that work kinda like a electrical solenoid, more power more contraction, 💡 could use two opposing coils to have full control of their magnetism ... Don't know if that would work but would be awesome if you can the vaultage in a circuit to test it, or maybe connecting server servo to a potentiometer? That's sounds fun 😊 Good luck and awesome projects ❤ Thank you🎉
Foot could spin sideways from a back heel and end with a big toe
Have you seen the video with the gyroscope balanced bipedal robot?
12:50 it can walk backwards better probably because it's knees are backwards. If you notice all animals have their knees forward and their elbows backwards. Disney did it backwards because it looks cooler. That and forward knees are counterintuitive.
@iskierka8399
3 ай бұрын
This is for clearance to get head further into food, not mechanical effectiveness. Dogs and cats may have the biological equivalent of the knee the same way, but they use their ankle for what humans would use the knee for. Same with birds. Both of these end up with a backwards mid-bend instead.