My Walking Robotic History

My Walking Robotic History | James Bruton

Рет қаралды 143,499

5 жыл бұрын

I've been busy working on a big secret project which starts soon! Here's an overview of walking robots I've built since around 2004. Of course things have progressed since then - 3D printing, Arduino and KZfaq have come along over the last 14 years or so.
① HARDWARE/SOFTWARE
What more important hardware is there in life than the clothes in your back and the cup in your hand. You can get your own Robot X tee or openDog mug at my store below: bit.ly/2z1at5Q
Below you can also find a lot of the typical tools, equipment and supplies used in my projects.
Lulzbot 3D Printers:- bit.ly/2Sj6nil
Lincoln Electric Welder:- bit.ly/2UyA576
CNC Router:- bit.ly/2QdsNjt
Ryobi Tools:- bit.ly/2RhArcD
Axminster Micro Lathe:- bit.ly/2Sj6eeN
Filament: bit.ly/2RBW2gr
Soldering Iron: bit.ly/2AJqEad
And don't forget code for some of my projects is available on my GitHub here: github.com/xrobots
② GENIUS
No MacArthur grant yet. But while I’m still waiting by the phone for that call, maybe you might patronise me with your Patreon-age or pick up some of my merchandise. Or, if you’re all out of digital cash just comment on one of my hilarious Instagram pics, pop me a Tweet or generally yell in my direction.
Patreon: / xrobots
Teespring: teespring.com/stores/james-br...
Instagram: / xrobotsuk
Facebook: / xrobotsuk
Twitter: / xrobotsuk
Huge thanks to my patrons, without whom my standard of living would drastically decline. Like, inside out-Farm Foods bag decline. Plus a very special shoutout to Aleph Objects, Inc who keep me in LulzBot 3D printers and support me via Patreon.
Why not join my community, who are mostly made up of actual geniuses. There’s a Facebook group and everything: / community
③ XROBOTS
Former toy designer, current KZfaq maker and general robotics, electrical and mechanical engineer, I’m a fan of doing it yourself and innovation by trial and error. My channel is where I share some of my useful and not-so-useful inventions, designs and maker advice. Iron Man is my go-to cosplay, and 3D printing can solve most issues - broken bolts, missing parts, world hunger, you name it.
XRobots is the community around my content where you can get in touch, share tips and advice, and more build FAQs, schematics and designs are also available.
④ MUSIC AND SFX
The majority of the music and SFX used in my videos is from Epidemic Sound share.epidemicsound.com/xrobots

Пікірлер: 210

@s0n0fsparda 5 жыл бұрын

I just realized you and the "crazy brit' " who made androids with poundland screwdrivers and maleable plastic are the same person. I have been following you since the blog, I'm mindblown. And glad I found back the crazy guy.

@stumpy1495 5 жыл бұрын

You should alternate between "best money can buy" builds with odrives etc and builds where you set yourself an "enthusiasts budget" of a couple of hundred. It would be great to see how you approach the problems/balance of cashflow vs quality and capabilities.

@matthewmillaisgray 5 жыл бұрын

Fantastic presentation James. Your enthusiasm remains positively contagious- My first robot build was the one found outlined in the Usborne electronic workshop book. It was a very basic balsa wood arm with the relay circuit with a LDR (to follow a drawn line), sensors etc. connected to a ZX Spectrum. This was in Zimbabwe, Africa- Not sure if you ever came along those books in the 80's. It was simple enough & happily designed to fuel the imagination of young minds. Thank you for your sharing. Greetings from the Cape of Good Hope peninsula

@spikekent 5 жыл бұрын

Fascinating insight James. Thank you.

@leestephens1137 5 жыл бұрын

Awesome to see your experience and skills in summary. Thank you for all your efforts to share this with us.

@sabre0smile 5 жыл бұрын

Well frankly this is encouraging... I mean it's not like you learned overnight but your first attempts look like my current attempts. Plus you're kind enough to share your experiences! Thanks for another fascinating video!

@jurpik35 5 жыл бұрын

wow this guy is a doctor in walking robotics

@empirerecords7137 5 жыл бұрын

Android 1 is terrifying! Haha. 1, 2 android 1 is coming for you!

@mbunds 5 жыл бұрын

Everything you have done is inspirational; I like very much that the shortcomings of your earlier machines did not discourage you to keep improving them. imagine what you could do with Boston Dynamics’ budget! Thanks for another excellent presentation!

@loganjorgensen 5 жыл бұрын

I really appreciate all your enthusiasm in how you tried everything over all that time. It really was harder only 10 years ago and further for DIY robotics, I'd dreamed and planned a lot over the years but I never even built one robot let alone that many, kudos. :D

@themoss 8 ай бұрын

Well done James.... your determination and consistency are just too impressive. I certainly learned something watching this video... big thank you.

@chrisfuller1268 2 жыл бұрын

Amazing story! Your passion and energy is evident!

@gc1370 2 жыл бұрын

You are one of the most amazing people I have ever heard of. I have never been so inspired and encouraged to learn

@evantaitt2031 5 жыл бұрын

Deadly work James. Hats off to you..

@TurboLife 5 жыл бұрын

Well that was fun! Really cool to see your progression!

@karimjawhar5 5 жыл бұрын

thanks for sharing this, it very inspiring! and showing your earlier walking robots left me with no excuses not build one today, because if you managed to make a walking robot back then I surly should be able to build one with the technology available today. very insightful thanks!!

@russkiyraketa2621 5 жыл бұрын

I'm so proud of you James. I remember watching ur arc reactor video u printed in your ao-101 and thinking damn this guy's is awesome. Here we are today!

@Skyentific 5 жыл бұрын

Great projects! Super impressive.

@nicholasloker4603 5 жыл бұрын

Love what you do mate, been following you for a few years now, very inspiring stuff always makes me want to have a crack at doing something cool 👍

@bruceneely4859 5 жыл бұрын

Good to see a review of your robotics history, I've seen most of your older youtubes, but good to see it all strung together with the background.

@jamesbruton 5 жыл бұрын

thanks!

@kyocode 5 жыл бұрын

how did u make this 5 days ago it just came out

@bruceneely4859 5 жыл бұрын

@@kyocode It was actually posted for Paterons a few days early, I recommend it if you want to get the episode early,

@kyocode 5 жыл бұрын

@@bruceneely4859 ooooh makes sense

@Sharklops 2 жыл бұрын

So glad to see this recap! Those early ones were wild!

@ElectraFlarefire 5 жыл бұрын

Very well done keeping up this standard for so long.

@dontrybaconnaked 2 жыл бұрын

Congratulations on living the dream and thank you for sharing it with us.

@kikller 4 жыл бұрын

that is quite a journey!! thank you for sharing!

@hunterbernard725 5 жыл бұрын

I have been watching your channel for a very long time. I like all of your videos. You have inspired me to make robots of my own. I love your exoskeleton project.

@IfYouWillem 5 жыл бұрын

He seems like fun for now, but eventually when his robotic underlings place him on the throne and the rest of us under foot, we won't be laughing...

@reggiep75 5 жыл бұрын

The machines are coming and we'll regret laughing at their crippled limping. Stop them from becoming self-aware and burn all windscreen wiper motors and other essential kinetic material they need to move!

@BenRyherd 5 жыл бұрын

It is amazing and truly inspiring how prolific of a builder you have been! I can't even imagine having to build in a full size desktop computer into one of the robots. Also, I can't imagine having to tweak orientation and sensitivity on a dozen RC Heli Gyros. I got into Multi-rotor building when the control boards were still the guts out of 3 Heli Gyros mounted to a single PCB (Soldered at angles on standoffs of course. I find your design/experimentation methodology very similar to my own which is very cool. Keep up the good work James!

@lennonthomas1223 2 жыл бұрын

ive got so many ideas in my head yet no knowledge or equipment to make my ideas a reality, ide love to just hand my ideas off to other people who are capable of actually producing something just to see if my ideas would even work, walking robots ofc are what i think about most, this guy has always been geat inspiration for my ideas

@CyrixLord 5 жыл бұрын

this video is an inspiration for when I get bogged down and unmotivated in my own projects. thanks for posting

@sethrd999 5 жыл бұрын

Great trip down memory lane James, We all came from humbler origins / all started from somewhere, the fact that your drive to just make it better brought you this far speaks volumes. This is great mantra for anyone in really any area of life that perseverance is everything. Also the term 'Good' is relative, your results speak for themselves, keep up the great work!.

@jamesbruton 5 жыл бұрын

thanks, I'm really glad I documented it, to some extent anyway

@Orbis92 5 жыл бұрын

Those homemade PCBs and hand wired boards remind me at those times I was still scared by electronic project. I was sure, I would never learn and understand a programming language nor did I understand those mighty op amps ;) Amazing to see how "simple" (from todays perspective) you started and where you got today with your quite complicated openDog. Thanks again for making it open and walking us through the programming. I learned so much from the last videos :)

@DamianReloaded 5 жыл бұрын

Amazing! More interesting that Darpa!

@gadgetmerc 5 жыл бұрын

Android 10 sucked me into your channel. I really liked the various iron man projects and cosplay but the robots keep me a very happy Patron.

@bosqueblanco3744 2 жыл бұрын

just started researching bipeds, so glad i found this video !

@mynameismynameis666 2 жыл бұрын

that is some great stuff and very inspiring.

@IndianRobotics 5 жыл бұрын

Hi james big fan from India . Really you are so good in Robotics. I am going to make humanoid based on your tutorials.

@jamesbruton 5 жыл бұрын

thanks!

@prashantandsapna 3 жыл бұрын

Your journey brings back so many memories. except you took your projects a lot forward. when i was in high school (~1997), i made a radio controlled cybernetic hand using umbrella skeletons, a metal sheeting from my geometry set enclosures, servos and controllers from toy cars. no youtube... no cheap china parts... infact i dont think i even had a computer back then. and being in Dubai there was little to no help on robotics or electronics... how times change :)

@halzion 5 жыл бұрын

“And I guess I originally started building these robots to be better at writing software, I’m still not that good” But you are probably one of the first few _People_ on earth to build a walking 2 legged robot in real life!

@stevenacton359 5 жыл бұрын

just seen you on the syfy channel in a Vector advert - you've hit the bit time now nice one!!

@vince_martyn 5 жыл бұрын

Like number 1000 - great stuff James!

@bluesquadron593 5 жыл бұрын

Thank you James! Onto andorid 100!

@saddlepiggy 5 жыл бұрын

Wow this is a great walkthrough

@Octopossible 5 жыл бұрын

Every one of these is amazing. You should be awarded a PhD in robotics.

@TheWinstn60 5 жыл бұрын

Man you’ve earned your stripes very informative thank you

@tafaragadze6432 2 жыл бұрын

This man is a bonafide genius. All this innovation on barely a shoestring budget. Man has done more for robotics with wood and screwdriver motors than most people have with million dollar budgets. Someone give this man a million dollars and watch him make the robots from Avatar and an army of terminator T800s.

@quoit99training83 5 жыл бұрын

If I want to build robots like you have in this awesome channel - can you recommend your learning path, the courses you took (or suggest), programming that we should know ... etc. thanks!

@Cynical... 5 жыл бұрын

Love that despite every iteration presenting more problems, here you are over 10 years later still sitting in your attic coding and bolting stuff together... You're honestly one of my favourite channels purely because I can rely on you to show me god damn robots, rather than the politics and attention-grabbing crap that this website rewards.

@jamesbruton 5 жыл бұрын

thanks!

@mejoresvideos2147 9 ай бұрын

ERES EL MEJOR, SIGUE HACIENDO MAS VIDEOS, APRENDO MUCHO DE TI

@thecrazy8888 2 жыл бұрын

Man... the things we could have done if our paths had crossed in high school. I need a fellow geek in my life.

@nigelmdl 5 жыл бұрын

nice to see! Really impressive ^^

@amandahugankiss4110 Жыл бұрын

I really liked the fella with the spine. My thoughts have been on tension only mechatronics lately. Nature don't push..

@dekutree64 5 жыл бұрын

lol, I was looking into pneumatic muscles for my project, and came to the same conclusion that solenoid valves are too expensive to use. But I have since learned of an interesting way to do similar linear pull actuation using electric motors, called a twisted string actuator. Basically you use a motor to twist up a pair of strings which causes them to pull toward the motor. Simple and lightweight. Look it up. Another awesome piece of equipment you should be aware of is the Bosch BNO055 absolute orientation sensor. It's like a regular IMU but with some brilliant programming to sort out your orientation from the motion data. It gives you a quaternion that represents your orientation with respect to the earth (north/south, east/west, up/down). Probably would be great for balancing robots. I'm using them for motion capture control gloves, where I have one sensor on the forearm and one on the back of the hand. Inverse transform the hand orientation by the forearm orientation and then convert to euler angles. Then convert those angles to servo signals, and you can have one servo follow your wrist bend motion, and one follow wrist twist.

@ozoid 5 жыл бұрын

You provide some excellent Inspiration :-)

@jamesbruton 5 жыл бұрын

thanks!

@FSK1138 5 жыл бұрын

amazing stuff !!

@gordonyoud5975 5 жыл бұрын

James, you could have saved an awful lot of time if you had grabbed a kid from off the street and wired it into your 3d printed parts. No need for expensive motors and such. :-)) Seriously, you have had some fun and I think you have done a fantastic job. My robot is not finished yet but it is getting there, just needs time.

@SuiseisekiSoffice 5 жыл бұрын

You did a very good job James, I love to watch your videos and get inspired by your robots! Why don't you put an A.I. in your droids? That should be awesome!

@grantclarke4713 5 жыл бұрын

Very interesting video....thanks

@reggiep75 5 жыл бұрын

17:45 - Novation BassStation rack.. nice modern YET retro synth gear! ;-)

@antonnym214 2 жыл бұрын

The dog looks great, man! Please make it robust enough to ride on, because what could be better than strolling around the neighborhood? Great vid!

@Tymon0000 5 жыл бұрын

Nice job man

@literallykey3298 2 жыл бұрын

I know this video is two years old, but it's wild seeing how different things were. Doesn't seem that long ago, but it's quite a contrast to now being able to make pretty much whatever fairly easily with cheap 3D printers and super powerful microcontrollers for $4. The only thing I wish we still had is radio shack (I'm just a freshman mechanical engineering student and it died before I learned its glory).

@marcellocalabresi6018 5 жыл бұрын

Thanks for this video. :-)

@ShinobiEngineer 5 жыл бұрын

GENIUS! 👏🤓

@steveparkes 5 жыл бұрын

'James' dodgy webcam' made a few quid in the days before Patreon and T-shirts ;)

@Xbearnt_YT 3 жыл бұрын

this shows that ur a electrycity genious BIG MAN

@Vaxtin 5 жыл бұрын

It's 3:02 AM. I'm already way past fatigued. Now this shows up in my feed. 24 minutes. Okay, I guess I'm going down fighting on this one.

@Electrodoc1968 2 жыл бұрын

Hi James. Reminds me of my experimentation. Did find a Gem off a DLL Called INPOUT32.DLL It allowed un-hindered reading of any Clocks, Inputs, Outputs and, of course Joystick ports. All interfacing with VB6.0 I'd find addresses in the bios or control panel, convert that to decimal then, using VB It was a simple instruction of OUT 888,1 To send pin 1 of the LPT (Printer Port) High. I used it to control a 36 segment Cash register display driver chip. Pin one would be programmed as a shift register pulse (Clock) and pin 2 as a toggle for the on/off value of that LED (Data) and pin 3 pulsed to advance to the next line by simply switching the negative rail for the next row of 32 LEDS using an extended decade counter. I Got 512 LEDS, So 8, 8 x 8 grid LED modules in a similar fashion as your VERO Board Comparators. BEAR In mind, this wasn't the textbook way of doing it.. It was Astounding what I realised and understood from the entire experience of the self taught process. I even had to put a For next loop in to do nothing 3 times between the high level on pin 1 and the level on pin 2. AND That was mentioned on the datasheet of the chip.. The entire "Screen" manage 11fps. average. Not slow when you realise its pointing to ONE LED at a time basically with a programmed hi / lo clock pin. The penny dropped for me regarding computer memory and I2C Concepts. I Was a failure at school. wasn't allowed to study computers cos i was (Rubbish) at maths. LOL

@titanwross 5 жыл бұрын

cool vid ,very interesting

@michaelblackstock6140 5 жыл бұрын

Nice historical reflection :-) Have you considered more ball/joint connections rather that two dimensional actuators? The ball/joints would give more fluid movements, granted easier said than done.

@computerjantje 5 жыл бұрын

before this video I was afraid your attention would drift away from humanoids. But now I know everything you did and are doing is only to get you better at your life goal: Building the best humanoid :) And that is the reason I follow this channel. I never knew you already did so many humanoid builds before. This is a great history video. Now it also more understandable that you are so good at it. Did Boston dynamics never offered you a job yet? Oh well I think they work much slower then you so you better keep going like you do now :)

@jamesbruton 5 жыл бұрын

Thanks, well I don't think I'm quite that good!

@Benimation2006 5 жыл бұрын

Ooooh secrets. Are you doing the Hamleys Xmas parade or maybe something for Mortal Engines? Exciting whatever it is! Interesting video. You have so much passion for this, it's great to see.

@IntrospectAvionics 5 жыл бұрын

that first one was Truly disturbing lol imagine running into that phantom of the opera Esq Android in a dark alley

@Poisonjam7 10 ай бұрын

17:25 Nice Parker! You have good taste in guitars. I have a Parker too, and it’s probably my #1 or second favorite. Mine’s a different model than yours, and it’s blue. 😎🤘

@kyootfox 5 жыл бұрын

James, don't give up on Arduino yet, have you considered bus transmission, SPI? With the master being the 'Coordinator/External Communications' node and the other two taking on the kinematics of fore/aft motion, they all could be communicating on the buss and making nano decisions of motion as requested from the master Coordinator.

@searbhreathach9762 Жыл бұрын

You have to start somewhere!

@bbogdanmircea 5 жыл бұрын

Omg amazing ... Now please say which is your favorite one, mine is Android 7 with only 3 wiper motors it is pretty cool !

@ryanau7222 3 жыл бұрын

a lot of your robots dont have arms, which would help greatly w/ the counter balance as it walks. looking forward to building my own robot one day. your videos are very inspiring.

@ZombieB 5 жыл бұрын

That's pretty good. 🤖

@TheWoodgineer 5 жыл бұрын

Fantastic background bud - would love to know how much the makerspace helped with the whole process or your time at Maplin/other jobs. (oh and also being friends with a genius like me) ;)

@bobbymcgee723 5 жыл бұрын

This story read like a highly narrated version of every "this is where the robot that killed the human race came from" montage. I predict that in 10 years, James is going to design and build the one we all need to be afraid of. Kidding aside, James.... really great work man. Schools across the world should use you as a real life example of "follow your dreams".

@john2759 4 жыл бұрын

Awesome 😎🎸

@jasonstokes5469 5 жыл бұрын

Can you take on the challenge of the Inmoov legs for the bot?

@capatainnemo 5 жыл бұрын

i saw you on a tv advert on Blaze tv

@Rikirock656 5 жыл бұрын

Omg android one is so creepy! Lol

@Dust599 5 жыл бұрын

Robotic santa?? its that time of year :)

@trulyinfamous 3 жыл бұрын

That first Android looks super creepy and I love it.

@cheesepuddin1266 5 жыл бұрын

Where did you learn your basics, because even the first robots you had relays, ect. So where did you learn to do that, school?

@BruceKenobi 5 жыл бұрын

Hi James!!! long time follower of your excellent channel, after seeing your great job with the walking robots, I started thinking: could it be possible to make the WA-7 Waitress droid from Dexter's Dinner in Star Wars Episode 2 life-size? could you picture it?

@statorworksrobotics9838 5 жыл бұрын

Awesome 🍻

@richardbloemenkamp8532 5 жыл бұрын

Great overview! I seems that every tall walking robot becomes a bit unstable, wobbly, slow and heavy after a while. And then they can only take small steps. What would it take to make a robot that can take bigger step for example steps of two foot lengths? It's a facinating problem.

@catto2496 2 жыл бұрын

totally agree, I have the same problem... the only way I did it it was adding a 3rd leg 🤣

@lasdi 5 жыл бұрын

*Très instructif*

@kayakMike1000 Жыл бұрын

Yeah... It's cool that you just DO SOMETHING... I would do a bit more planning. For example, you could do some calculations on how much torque the hip, knee, and ankle joint need to be to do something really basic, like balance one one foot. Bipedal walking is quite a challenge, it's like the robot is constantly falling, but catches its self on alternate legs. Shuffling is better than nothing, but legs need to have a purpose, like can it navigate stairs?

@supermariobraincancer6417 Жыл бұрын

It would be really cool. if he was able to make a themed walking robot, like a animatronic that could walk around

@jamesbruton Жыл бұрын

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/b9x_g6unzq21p5s.html

@G0thCrayon 3 жыл бұрын

Where on Earth did you source that much thermoplastic for Android X? It's 2021, and I still can't find a company that sells it in lots over 1.5lbs, and even then it's at prices bordering on the ridiculous...

@rossbrigolimusic 3 жыл бұрын

How come I only learned about this channel now. I think we have the same kind of brain James. We could be good friends. I played around with wiper motors and pic microcontrollers in early 2000 before digging on steppers and servo. I have built robots in the past as well but not as much as you and not as much as I wanted to. I grew up in poor country. You are very lucky to be doing what you love and earn a living out of it. That makes me jealous. P.S. I like your opendog v2. It made me want to buid one. But my 3d printer is tiny and i don't have as much time. But i will try.