Maker Faire Bay Area 2023
Got Robots? Giant Skating Robot 'Marauder'
Home: California, United States
Marauder is a giant (5' tall, 170 lbs) walking, skating and dancing hexapod robot, and is the fourth generation robot using Nick's locking linkage walking mechanism. The locking linkage leg mechanism holds the robot up against gravity so no motor energy is used while standing and very little to walk as the motors never see the mass of the robot. The current RoboGames Best of Show Gold medalist, the robot was recently upgraded with a reactive rainbow lightshow on each leg. Passive wheels on the legs allow the robot to skate at a fast walking pace and Marauder can now deploy the smaller but similar robot Blader directly from its underbelly while skating. Blader is fifth gen and uses the same mechanism and so is code compatible with Marauder while being 1/4 the size.
http://www.gotrobots.com/marauder/Additional Project Photos
Maker
Nick Donaldson
Roboticist, toy designer and silver backed alpha geek Nick Donaldson has been building robots for over 20 years, from advanced research robots to successful toys and gold medal competition robots. Born in the UK he now lives in Marin.
http://www.gotrobots.com/What Inspired You to Make This?
Marauder was commissioned by Intel and is twice the size of Nick's robot 'Glider' Nick likes designing walking and skating robots because they are more interesting and he likes the challenge as they are much more difficult to build and program than wheeled robots. Walking robots are just cool!