Lego bipedal bot takes several small stairs for man, one big fall for robotkind (video)
Climbing stairs is one of the hardest physical tasks for a bipedal collection of motors and circuits, as Honda's ASIMO can relate, but one man's managed to achieve just that with this head-banging Lego Mindstorms NXT robot. After spending years tinkering with the plastic blocks, 222Doc's X-2 Chicken Walking Biped can autonomously walk up and down flights of small steps with relative ease, perform headstands and even scale five-inch cinder block cliffs if precariously pushed. The robot requires only seven Lego servo motors plus a touch sensor and gyroscope in each foot, but also uses a pair of third-party multiplexers (also spotted in that transforming Wall-E) for fine control of the extra motors. Watch it perform after the break, but stop the second video at 3:20 if pain makes you queasy -- the bot takes a pretty ugly spill.

























That's pretty epic! Speed this up with some higher-powered servos and make it out of metal and we've got ourselves a winner!
It's a pretty good slow-motion example of how bipedals walk: put foot down, transfer weight to new foot, pick old foot up, place down, etc.
@Mike10010100
I wouldn't take walking lessons from a robot anytime soon, if I were you.
This robot is still in the "static" category, while we and the most advanced robots have progressed into "dynamic", where we're constantly falling and using the momentum of the upper body, not the weight, to keep us straight. Look it up - it's really interesting.
@Delogic
Ah, I see. That is true, now that I think about it.
@Mike10010100
Epic is being epically overused these days.
It was an ok series.
@Mike10010100
"That's pretty epic! Speed this up with some higher-powered servos and make it out of metal and we've got ourselves a winner!"
Yes. And start denoting each new one with a T- prefix while you're at it.
@Mike10010100 It walks more like a chicken when I move the Cue quickly from left to right on youtube hehe
@Mike10010100 They need to learn to multitask: while moving center of weight you can also move your leg into its next position. Should speed things up considerably.
@Mike10010100
It's painfully slow...are you sure it's only because of motor speed? I think it could need higher processing power too for the quicker step calculations...after all, when a being walks faster, walks differently too (different allocation of weight etc..)
Very cool I like this
It's official, these are the most boring videos on the internet.
Cool achievement or not.
@The Albatross
Yeah, I suppose it would be boring for people who have ADD. Those of us who CAN focus for more than 30 seconds enjoy this video.
@Mike10010100
You sir, have just made my day (night?)!
LOOOOOOOOOL
@Mike10010100 Yeah, let me introduce you to this thing called the internet. Maybe you've heard of it.
@Mike10010100
Says the man with a LOL cat on his profile picture. haha
Great choice in song for video 2. Poor sad robot.
Rocky would have been a different movie had they had to replace him with this robot.
Anyone else just skip to 3:20 on the second video? :P
Now....how do you make one??
we really should speed up some of these videos 4 minutes to watch a lego robot go up 2 stairs isnt exactly the most entertaining thing ever but GREAT BOT!!!! lol
Not really true bipedal motion. The balancing mechanism is awkward. True bipedal motion involves mitigation of um balanced forces. We catch ourselves while we are unbalanced.
talk about a master at tip-toeing around.
iiittttt sssssoooooooo ssssslllllllllooooooowwwwwwww.
@cdf74dc9
The first video at x4 speed looks impressive, if only...
Robot Nelson says "01101000011000010010110101101000011000010000110100001010!"
Metal....Gear.....
If climbing stairs is so difficult already, how long until they are finally capable of making love!
its all fun and games until the thousand dollar robot gets hurt.
If you are going to reference Neil Armstrong, the title of this post should read: "Lego bipedal bot takes several small stairs for A man, one big fall for robotkind."
'One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind' is contradictory.
'One small step for A man, one giant leap for mankind' is what was said and makes way more sense.
You're welcome.
this is cool and what not, but isn't mindstorms all programmed? ive never played with a lego mindstorms before but i thought it was all programmed, ill be more impressed when this is all autonomous.
@tylerspurgeon I understand what you are saying but the fact remains that ALL robots are programmed at this point. Either they are programmed to perform specific actions in carefully contructed environments (sequenced commands) OR they are programmed with a basic form of AI. This AI allows them to respond to external data (locations of obstacles determined using sensory inputs such as movement using light, sound, temperature, pressure etc etc) to which they respond with either a programmed sequence of actions or by a calculated combination of specific programmed actions dependent upon the variable data for a given environment. AI is not truly autonomous yet, or at the very least Skynet wants to keep a low profile for now.
BTW Could it have taken any longer to climb these steps. Next time, can you give us the 2x speed version please?
@tylerspurgeon Mindstorms can be Bluetooth controlled rather than just programmed. But I do understand what you mean, unfortunately true A.I is a way off yet.
make the friggin bot from ROBOCOP or an AT-AT
lol, it took one guy and a box of legos, to acheive waht asimo,and honda spent billions of dollars to achieve
lol, it took one guy and a box of legos, to acheive waht asimo,and honda spent billions of dollars to achieve
Is it still walking?
this takes longer than my grandma to go up and down the stairs
OMFG that is wicked.
If nothing else, I guess this just shows us how complicated movements we make every day really are.
Except for you Americans, I don't think you have stairs over there any more.
@GiantEgg1
Stairs?!? We evolved from using stairs years ago. Now we just hover upward when necessary, looking down on the rest of you non-Americans using your silly stairs.
That is definitely good for a lego bot but not amazing given how ridiculously wide the feet are.
I like the molding of this person's house - very ornate for floor molding...