High school senior builds walking robot, the VSR-2: Talos FG (video)
By Sean Hollister 
posted May 14th 2010 7:45AM
posted May 14th 2010 7:45AM
These days, you don't have to be a whiz kid to build robots in your basement: off-the-shelf microcontrollers, Arduino boards and Lego Mindstorms can take care of the hard work. Adam Halverson, however, is the real deal -- he built his first robot at the age of twelve, and after six years of failed attempts, he's crafted a full-size humanoid that can walk. Filed with pistons, servos and an assimilated laptop, the VSR-2:Talos FG cost the South Dakota high school senior $10,000 to build with fellow student Anthony Winterton; he claims he could reconstruct it for half now that he's done. The hulking metal machine won him an all-expenses-paid trip to the 2010 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in San Jose, where he's competing for up to $75,000 in prize money. We'll be watching to see if he recoups his investment -- awards will be announced this afternoon. See how the Talos FG's gears mesh in our gallery, or watch the bot take its first steps after the break.
Update: The awards are in, and though Talos FG's grippers didn't manage to pull down that $75,000 grand prize, they did manage to net Halverson $5,500 in cash and savings bonds from Intel, the Cade Museum Foundation and the U.S. Army.
Update: The awards are in, and though Talos FG's grippers didn't manage to pull down that $75,000 grand prize, they did manage to net Halverson $5,500 in cash and savings bonds from Intel, the Cade Museum Foundation and the U.S. Army.
Super Impressive ! Good Luck ahead !
Impressive, but I think for $10,000 there's plenty of talented young people who could do something similar, but just don't have the cash. :(
@SimonRichards
Absolutly.
I'm a GCSE student in the UK, (From limited knowledge - wikipedia - of US school years, I think I'm a "Freshman", although I'm not actually in my first year of high school, so probably more akin to "Sophomore" - our school systems don't seem to be very comparable, at all.) and can think of many products I'd love to embark on in my Electronics class.
However, $10K ??!
The maximum I'd be willing and able to spend would probably be around £75 (That's what like $100?). Unless of course, I made something that I actually need, want and would be useful - and made it well - like say an AVR. In which case I could justify spending much more on it.
I really envy nerds from rich families.
The grandma bot is almost complete!!! MUAHAHAAHAAHAAAHAA
What does it think it's about to step on a booby trap?
domo arigato
Next on the news: Apple sues lil' kid over dozens of infringed patents.
i want to know what science project beat this high school kids walking biped robot? Must be a nuclear or cold fusion reactor developed in a basement by a 6 year old or something.
Props for this kids work!
But $10,000 at his age? I could have built some pretty useful stuff (not a walking robot maybe, given the state of tech back then, but _useful_ stuff anyway, I assure you) at the age of 10 if I had that kind of cash to throw around back then.
Instead I had to persuade my parents (similar to moving heaven and earth) to be allowed to visit the Science Museum (entry ticket $5, 5 whole bucks!) for two hours every week to squeeze myself, along with about 30 other screaming, hollering, fighting, teasing kids, into a room equipped with 16 Commodore PET computers, where every once in a while I managed to plonk away at some machine language proggy I'd dreamt up the days before. The following day I would spend another two hours in the attic of our local electronics store, poking around in recycled stuff and leftovers from last year's thrift sale...great way to learn about circuit bending and such.
Yeah, times sure have changed.
that thing on his chest in the beginning of a robotic UI.