Designing. Building. Testing. Sharing the process. Aerospace Engineer
Joined December 2024
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RICO is (almost) walking now!!! Everything checks out on the electronics and hardware side, but I still need to refine his walking gait. This is step one of many. The plan is smooth walking, then adding Jetson vision + LiDAR for autonomous navigation.
I did catch him at the end!
“A clean shop is quiet. It’s a place for real reflection.”
- Adam Savage, Every Tool’s a Hammer
Clean desk. Clear head. Big believer in cleaning up after a productive day and making a list of lists of lists for next time.
Somewhere at the bottom is “Finish RICO”
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All the current electronics fit. The last thing is to attach all knee and thigh servos for the legs. I still need to cut down the body supports and leg tubes for the new design. Hopefully he'll be walking again soon!
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Building your own hardware really makes you think about design decisions past you made. I have four internal bolts for mounting that allen keys will not reach. Time to get creative!
It fits though, so Rico V3 is coming along.
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The first version of RICO V1 had many problems including not enough torque from servos, play in leg movement, and poor electronics layout. Now on V3 (V2 was a rabbit hole), I am buying stronger servos, shortening legs,and improving layout of electronics. Wish me luck!
I should also mention the addition of a front facing stero camera and 2D LiDAR sensor for autonomous moving. That is the long term goal of it, so Iwanted to design for it now instead of an addition later.
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The best way to gain experience in this new domain for me is to build and test. I have worked a lot with 3D printed design and mechanisms but never tracked.
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Grant Maree retweeted
Little brother didn't want a real dog so he made RICO, robotic integrated canine operator.
Filament wound carbon fiber tubes from the shop and much less likely to shit on the floor
@maree35172
#buildshit
After months and finally posting about it all at once, Rico is finally being assembled. I need to redesign the center section of the electronics bay for additional sensors before I glue everything together. This is thd first test series as a complete unit
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Rico (the dog) is starting to cone together now that I got the final carbon fiber tubes. I have printed one center hip section for testing out 3D IK on regular and mirrored leg
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First successful inverse kinematics test.
This is one leg following a commanded foot position in real time. Still a long way to go, but the math is working and it's exciting to finally see it move
Next steps CAD entire body
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The robot dog legs are taking inspiration from Tazar engineering on YouTube. I like how he designed the legs with both servos shoulder mounted. I have designed a similar mechanism for testing out IK on leg V1
His Channel:
youtube.com/@tazerengineerin…
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Project 1: Robot dog
The goal is to design and build a custom robot dog from the ground up. Every part is being designed in CAD, 3D printed, built, and programmed from scratch, including the inverse kinematics and control
By no means the first but I want one that is mine
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AIAA DBF was one of the best engineering experiences I've had.
Our team built a composite aircraft from the ground up to complete multiple competition missions. I led manufacturing and structural design, from composite layups and molds
Working 60 hour weeks never felt so good
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