The Playa Crawler

The Playa Crawler is a "mutant vehicle" styled in the dieselpunk aesthetic and imagined as a single passenger military scout vehicle. The walking leg linkage was developed by Theo Jansen. It was made to roam the alkali flats of the Black Rock Desert.

What inspired you to make this project?:
I've always been fascinated with the walking linkage of Theo Jansen and I'd never seen anyone recreate his walking mechanism on anything but smaller scale models. I've also attended Burning Man since 2011 and ever since I've marveled at the art cars that people make and bring out onto the desert not only to show off their creativity but also as a mode of transportation around the city to be able to see all that it has to offer. I thought it would be cool not just to make a personal vehicle for myself but one that incorporated a walking mechanism instead of using wheels to be able to walk over dust dunes and through mud puddles hopefully without getting stuck. I've also always linked the aesthetic of the dieselpunk universe over steampunk and thought it would be cool to model my vehicle after that visual style and make it into some sort of military scout vehicle. The larger goal is to make more such vehicles for different purposes.