I started watching the video expecting to hear "I will be selling the plans", which despite how great this robot is, would be a heartbreaker for me. Hearing you say you intend to open source the vital stuff (code/3d files/instructions) while deciding to monetize the nice optional extras was just the sweetest music. I chose to subscribe immediately and will follow this project, and jump into building as soon as you feel the 3d parts are ready to share. You rock. Seriously.

Obviously, we all want a tutorial! Srsly.

Very nice hexapod. Making it open source, with courses on top of it will help hobbyists or who get into it to just start building. I keep trying to find time outside software development to do some kind of robotics due to burnout, so know what you mean. Now we just need a few more of these and have them dance in sync for your own personal army of spiders :D

The fact that you're willing to release everything for free (after all this insane effort and time) makes me respect you so much.

Interesting work. Here are some thoughts/ideas I had while watching: 1) Stabilization Muscles: Real-life joints have smaller stabilizer muscles in addition to the macro driver muscles. You might consider adding something along the lines of tensioned ligaments and/or little stabilizer drivers pulling on elastic, spring, pneumatics/hydraulics, or some equivalent tensioning straps across the joints. These could also help provide feedback data to help the system "understand" how the joint is moving by seeing which stabilizers are being tensioned and which ones are relaxed if they are hooked up to a force meter. 2) Force Redirectors: The knee joint, for example, has the kneecap, with muscles attached by ligament to the top and then separate muscles attached to the bottom. This re-directs force "over" the knee joint in such a way to reduce the torque necessary to extend the lower leg and also do so with more stability and less "jittering". That could also help with the "jitter/stutter" issue you're having with the joints. 3) Foot "Angle of Attack" During Walk Cycle: I noticed when showing the example animation for the walk cycle, the foot seemed to simply be "aimed" straight down and then the entire foreleg would slide backwards while perpendicular to the ground. I don't know if this was just for simplicity of animation of if it was actually how it's made to work in the code, but it might be helpful to give it a slight "angle of attack" when it walks; have the leg "tilted" slightly forward so that the tip of the foot points slightly backwards. In other words, the "curve" for the walk cycle shouldn't be a completely straight line, but it should attempt to "dig" ever so slightly down into the ground and there should be a "secondary" cycle for a point somewhere "up-leg", maybe at the middle or even at the "knee" joint with it's own walk cycle calculated just a split-second ahead of the foot. Maybe experiment with it to see if this yields any improvement. 4) Spider Curling: In real-life, Spiders have constant tension on their legs to make them "curl" up underneath them. In order to walk, they actually use their own blood pressure, forcing their circulatory fluid (not technically blood; in spiders it's called _hemolymph)_ out into their legs _against_ that baked-in curling pressure and then "letting up" or "pushing out" to operate the legs. It might be worthwhile to explore this as an option; make some kind of tension system that's constantly trying to fold the legs "under" and then the only real job of the servos is to "extend", and the variable is either "extend harder" or "extend less". It might even be possible to ditch the servo concept altogether, or at least re-purpose it and, instead, use some kind of pneumatic or hydraulic drive to handle the extension of the legs. BTW, this is why spiders curl up like that when they die; no more circulatory pressure means they can't fight against that forced leg curl anymore. 5) Ant GPT: Obviously not even _remotely_ something to implement anytime soon, but perhaps one could incorporate AI functions to do things like optimize leg movements, especially if it integrated aspects like the stabilizer "muscles" with sensors. An AI could take all the info like the tension of each ligament, angle of each joint, power of each servo, accelerometer, body orientation metrics, pneumatic system pressure, etc. and both coordinate the walking calculations and also continually work to optimize them. Hell, even incorporate _vision_ into the system by putting cameras on it. Give it six tiny cameras for good measure and also dramatic irony. They don't necessarily need to see "well", they just need "information" which can be incorporated and utilized for whatever it's worth.

Amazing project, the movement of the robot is so smooth. Congrats! If you can share the porjects as open source, it will be amazing!

This looks like an incredible project I'm a robotics engineer myself and this is peak, would also loved if you would have talked a little about the dynamics of the robot not just the kinematics but it's awesome, hope that the kit and the course sell well the project deserves it.

Kit+course idea sound really good

Currently a masters student in Robotics and I have to say your application of robotic kinematics and inverse kinematics to compute joint angles and actually develop the controls for your robot is so cool dude.

This is awesome and needs more likes. I want a whole stock of these for when I want my mail brought to my room and for when I fight Spider-Man.

Hey man, I think this is seriously cool. Making mistakes is part of learning, and I've heard that one of the best ways to learn is with the intention to teach others. You've inspired me. Thank you.

to see such artifact creature, brings me such joy that it kinda makes the sadness go away. Thank you!

honestly cant stop watching this video the smoothness of this thing is insane

I would purchase the course in a heartbeat! You’ve earned my subscription and look forward to further updates!

Can't wait for the course on this project

You got my sub from the sentence that ended 'in blender' :) Finally someone else that uses blender for precision modeling!

just found this channel and I'd take your course in a heart beat. I can learn so much online through various sources but there is such a benefit to a structured curriculum.

The moment i heard this is open source I subscribed. Need more people like you!

Would 100% buy the course as you describe it.

I need a tutorial so much! Nice job!

Cool project, looking forward to the kit and course! A nice feature would be to get it running with ROS2. The benefit of this would be, if you put on some sensors like LIDAR, the hexapod would be able to walk autonomous and could use all the features of ROS2.

OMG, it looks so smooth

This is great! To me, I think I could create something similar, but that means I know how much effort was put into this project. Absolutely incredible!

I'd definitely be interested in a kit and a course! I've always wanted to learn more about these little robot projects and how to do them as a hobby.

Its happy jumps made me happy!

New robotics channel 🎉

I like the idea!, looking forward :D

"It jumps!"...lol, thumbs up earned. Great build

Saw this on Reddit and I'm happy that KZfaq served this up. I appreciate all your documentation and instruction. Instant Sub from me!

Can’t wait for that hopefully sooner

I would absolutely love a tutorial. I've been researching hexapods to build one with my sons. Very cool project. Thank you for sharing your experiences.

I'm incredibly enthusiastic to see this project and to start robotics for myself after a long time procrastinating.

I recognize this! I saw your update videos on reddit, and you even answered one of my questions that I asked you! Nice project

You better scare some kids on Halloween with this thing. Great work!

That is amazing!! Doing the modelling in blender blew my mind! I can feel the headaches of doing mechanical parts in it. But it's a great example of improvising with the available tools/knowledge. Congratulations, this was extremely well done!

I really like the idea of the course!

This is great! I'd love to see a tutorial! Keep up the innovative content!

Hello Aecert, my last comment seems not to be saved by KZfaq, so i try again: you mentioned that the model for your Hexapod is the MX-Phoenix from Zenta. I also find it the best. It looks great and moves very smoothly and fluidly. I have also been working on a hexapod for the last few years, but my programming skills are very limited, and I have not been able to teach the robot that the world is NOT absolutely flat. That each leg can also touch the ground above or below the baseline. Or maybe not at all. I had been planning to start over when I stumbled across your video. I was immediately intrigued and still am! In Zenta's videos, you can see his Phoenix climbing up and down a large rock or steps. It has a switch built into each foot as a sensor to adjust to the terrain. In the list of your STL files are things like Tibia Switch Mount, Switch Stopper, and Switch Foot, so I assume you at least plan to include switches as well. Which only makes sense if you also use them as sensors. So my question: are you planning something like a Climb Gait, as Zenta seems to have done? That would be great! In general, I'm extremely excited about your way of implementing such a project! I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes.

I am on the tutorial train!!!

Love the idea of the course.

this is amazing and so beautifully done , cant wait to see the actual tutorial

I would def do the course if it comes out, I would love to learn how all this leg placement stuff works, as I'm currently building a robot arm which would really benefit from it. 10/10 channel btw.

Yes, tutorial and kit 👍

Yes, definitely want a tutorial. Need one better than the ant one.

Oh my God, please do it! I'm so hyped for the open source, the shop and the course! Your hexapod is amazing! I have a dream project to built a hexapod. I know a little bit of electronics, a little bit of arduino, have a 3d printer but I'm not an engineer. This course would help me out and it would be really great!

Two ideas I have. One some sort of mount plate on top for attaching accessories. Two wireless charger on the bottom so it can walk onto and set itself down on a charging pad. I think just these two modifications would greatly expand the use cases for this awesome robot. Dang it, now I want to build one.

Keep this up and this channel will get bigger

i would pay for that course. I'm subscribed and i hope to see that materialize soon

Yes! I want to print and build this. A tutorial and sharing code would be so amazing. Great job !

wow this is so cool! and the aesthetic of the 3d design too

Beautiful project! All the best!

Now add a terrifying 'gallop' mode :D

I like this channel already

Very cute hexapod. Since this is your first robotics project in a long while and you changed servos twice, maybe hold off on course and kit until you have enough experience to show the optimal way to do things and include the best parts for the project

this is the most satisfying but terrfying also inspiring thing ive ever seen

bro, deserved a sub

Hey there! Just watched your hexapod video and I'm blown away by your amazing creation! 🤯 Your skills as a programmer and game developer truly shine in this project. I've got a few ideas that could make your hexapod even cooler, and I definitely think you should consider open-sourcing it to get the community involved! Let me flow here for a second.. my brain is literally gushing with ideas: 1. Digital replica in a game engine: With your game dev background, you could create a virtual version of the hexapod in Unity or Unreal. This way, we can all experiment with AI algorithms, locomotion strategies, and obstacle navigation in a virtual environment before implementing them in the real robot; even people without the soldering skills or 3D printers could collaborate on making the control software better. 2. Fisheye lens cameras with low-resolution but super-fast sensors: Adding these cameras on the top and bottom of the pod's body would provide a 360-degree view of its surroundings. The low-res, high-speed sensors would help the robot quickly process its environment and make smarter decisions. (already thinking about implementing a really slim neural net for basic sensory perception and a dedicated vision system for object recognition) 3. Machine learning for advanced movement & navigation: Train the hexapod to adapt to different terrains and obstacles using ML algorithms. It could learn to climb, walk on uneven surfaces, and maybe even perform some sweet acrobatic moves! 4. Crowdsource AI development: Open-sourcing your project means the entire community could contribute their own AI algorithms or improvements for the hexapod, pushing its intelligence to new heights! 5. Gaming & entertainment: Create a game where players control their own hexapods in a virtual arena, battling other robots or completing challenges, controlled by AI.. maybe even with different checkpoint files (of limited size, obviously.. not everyone has a A100 laying around 🤣) of trained networks being able to be uploaded to a website where they would be set up against other neural networks in battle. A hexapod would be perfect for this! .... ok, ok, maybe I'm rambling off a bit on this one, but still 😁 Your hexapod project is seriously impressive, and I believe open-sourcing it would inspire others to contribute and learn from your work. The possibilities are endless! Keep up the fantastic work, and I'm excited to see where this project goes! 🚀🕷🎮

I love this! And yes I would buy both the kit and the lesson!

Nice jump!!

Once I start my job in cybersecurity I'd gladly buy your kit and your course!

this video just got recommended to me and man, it's fantastic and the jumping surprised me. lol also, i can totally relate with the burnout from web dev work.

I am very excited for the course! 100% will get it the day it comes out. Loved the video and I totally want to build the robot because I am in college right now and I want to go into robotics so I really want to learn more about the course. Keep up the great work the video was awesome.

it is really interesting, and im excited and waiting for tutorials 👉👈

Would definitely buy your course

Brilliant idea! I like the kit idea Especially if you included all the parts and tutorial videos. My daughter is learning robotics and something like this would make a great gift.

Had same jitter 7:20 on the loosest leg of mine. I wouldn't really blame the servo as such. It's simply the mass of the leg at a distance and the speed of the movement causing overshoot on the servo position so it tries to correct back the other way and the same thing happens and basically it resonates. The servo is kinda doing what it is supposed to be doing but I appreciate that doesn't get you any closer to getting rid of the problem. Indeed increasing resistance to movement on the leg is probably the best bet for a fix.

What interesting motor skills! 🤔 like a real spider moved ! 👍

Looking nice 👍 and good luck with your future project making it a kit with tutorials. Have fun!

Awesome stuff bro

It´s look very awesome dude! Clap

Amazing project! It's nice to see a tutorial about this robot. In my opinion, it's much more interesting to observe the code and mathematics principles of hexapod in video format (not for free, of course). I mean, to make paid video course with explanation of principles of walking, moving, and etc. Good luck😁👍🔥

Hey! this is awesome! I am a robotics engineering student and I must say you did a great job there. I will buy your course the day it comes out! please also include pcb design in the course. Thanks!

I would love to see a Walker like this interact with the world around it. This means if it sees a step or rock in the way it can intuitively lift its legs in a way to get over the obstacle without having the “pilot” imputing a command to do so.

I am in ! As long as the price is right. I am just starting in robotics. Bought a official Arduin starter kit. Thansk a lot. Give some stuff for free a get some money in return.... that is the way to go

Amazing video! Deserves a lot more views for all the effort

Great build 👏,, Figuring out joint kinematics in this complex build in itself is the USP of this project and the upcoming course.

I like the idea very much since already received 20 rc motors to create a hexabot

start of video: "I did this as a hobby in 3 months" also him: "I do game dev as a hobby" totally makes sense, game dev people are absolute workhorses and get stuff done!

Great project and implimentation. I'm looking to make a spider or hexpod robot soon. So it's great to get these hints on how you did it.

very cool, would be awesome to see other people try to code it and get it to leap forward

Sehr toll gemacht!!👍

Reminds me of general grievous! So cool!

well done , your progress and approach to this looks gr8 , subscribed , will defo be following this project

Amazing work!

Great work!

There should be a hexapod war competitino live streamed on ESPN.

I just got done building a quadruped one with the cheap sg90 servos and it's cool but wow yours is so smooth. I can't get much power out of mine without it shutting down. Definitely going to follow your project, thanks.

Kit plus course????........ HELL YES!!!!!!

love this project

This is really great. I do lots of 3dprinting but am now trying to learn electronics so I'd be very interested in the course.

This is really damn cool. Well done!

8:49 jumping hexapod is awesome

Blender is a weird choice for a cad software but I lersonally love to use for 2 reasons. I prefer vertex based modelling(don't know the proper term) and it doesn't kill my pc when the project gets a little more complex.

Excellent video, verry educational and beneficial to everyone.

Amazing!!!

Awesome stuff I just thought 🤔 about hex pod ii No remote control however sensors to move out of the , respond to sound, and or instructions etc You have obviously done the hardest part of it and it looks like a winner 🏆

This is how the replicators were born

This is really cool! You also might be able to get rid of the jittering legs by adding a pid controller for the motors, but honestly the friction plates are a lot less work and perform fine.

I subscribd! This is crazy and epic! I am about to watch your next video

Hey Aecert, this is top tier content 👌. I've been looking to simulate something like this before actually purchasing the parts. Looks awesome.