Pogo-Bot Goes All Terrain With Compliant Foot

What do you get if you mix a pogo stick, a quadcopter, and engineering college students from the University of Toronto? This thing, apparently– a “monopedal hopping robotic” that makes use of a spikey, pivoting foot pad tensioned by what appear to be elastic bands to maintain it upright on all terrain from comfortable sand to exhausting ice.

It’s an attention-grabbing idea. The thrust from the 4 propellers is what provides the vitality to get the robotic transferring, however its pogo-like hopping is totally right down to the spring-loaded single legged “touchdown gear”. Early iterations simply used a spike on the tip of that leg, however that failed in ways in which some would possibly discover humorous, which you will note in case you watch the video embedded under. Giving the monopod an precise foot with some traction and the power to pivot and match the terrain works significantly better– no longer solely can this robotic leap tall fences in a single certain, an errant ice patch gained’t ship it skittering away.

This isn’t the primary one-legged robotic we’ve seen; some only use their leg whereas others have wings, however this odd quadcopter is the primary we’ve seen to courageous Canadian winter.