Giger: Custom humanoid robot

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By Marc de Vinck
Posted 2009/11/03 @ 7:23 am
Category Robotics

Giger is a really cool looking humanoid robot with impressive specs. The bot stands about 2 feet tall, weighs in around 11 lbs, has a WiFi camera, and runs embedded Linux. Did I mention it cost $10,000 to build! I guess all those actuators are expensive!

BY Marc de Vinck

I currently teach in Lehigh University’s Master’s of Technical Entrepreneurship program. I'm also an kit maker, author, father, tinkerer, and member of the MAKE Technical Advisory board.

In the Maker Shed

Makey Makey Standard Kit

Calculator Kit from Spikenzie Labs

BrushBots

Raspberry Pi Starter Kit - Includes 512MB Raspberry Pi

5 Responses to Giger: Custom humanoid robot

Mike on November 4th, 2009 at 4:01 am said:

Named Giger I was hoping for something that looked biomechanical.

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Sam Bleckley on November 4th, 2009 at 5:34 am said:

It sure looks like they built a $10,000 humanoid robot without designing it’s gait first. I’m aware how impossibly hard walking bipedally is, but with that kind of budget I’d hope a great deal of attention was paid to locomotion; the results are pretty lackluster.

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Andrew on November 4th, 2009 at 6:05 am said:

Andrew Alter here, builder of said robot. Figured I’d chime in and explain a few things. The majority of my time thus far has been spent in machining and physically building the robot, it’s only been up and running for a very short time period, a project I’m working on in my spare time.

Also- nearly impossible to develop a walking gait before the robot is built, even with the most robust computer physics simulation (which I don’t have access to). Pretty much have to build it, and go from there, and what you see in the video is only the 2nd revision of the gait, sans IMU balance engine and months of fine tuning.

I’ll keep posting video of my progress though! Takes a very long time to dial in a fine tuned walking gait, what you see here is very rough work in progress. =)

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Marc de Vinck on November 4th, 2009 at 6:10 am said:

Andrew,

Thanks for the info…and thanks for sharing your build process. Keep me (us) updated, I would love to post more information about how you fine-tune the robots gait and other build information. Again, great project!

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Dale Wheat on November 4th, 2009 at 3:48 pm said:

Andrew,

Excellent work! That’s a beautiful machine you’re building there. Keep up the good work!

Plus, that’s probably the best tinyCylon accessory I’ve seen yet!

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