15.5 Future Work and Conclusions

The main objectives where to analyze the Klann linkage and use it to build a system that attempted to mimic how crabs move, that would move side to side in a loop with a single motor. While some of our goals were achieved extremely well, others were plagued with issues. Our analysis of the Klann linkage was focused on footpath analysis and optimizing our linkage to ensure flatness when on the floor. This was achieved, even though the optimizations found were extremely minor. On the other hand, the actual physical robot was less successful. It was able to move and complete a few walks on its own but suffered from problems with teeth stripping and the system very quickly degraded and lost functionality.

In the future we would have liked to use a larger drive gear in the linkage setup so that there was less need for a large geartrain to try and add extra steps per rotation. We would also like to make wider gears out of tougher materials so that they would last better. We believe that with those two changes the system would last dramatically better. For a more radical change we would have liked to split the legs and put the motor in the middle so that there would be better weight distribution and no need for a stick to keep the crab propped up and stable.

We would like to acknowledge the contributions of our TA’s Conner Hennig and Mila Wetz for their help with our project. Conner helped send us in the right direction when we were trying to minimize the friction in our joints and helped us spitball early possible concepts for the oscillation mechanism. We would also like to acknowledge the space and tools provided by the Texas Invention Works, whose staff allowed us to show up early and stay late to work on this project in their space.