That shouldn't be t to hard to build. You can steer and propel it using rotational moment and then have legs for turning by way of standing or cg shifting.
Looks like it would require a 'brain' to decide when to morph into the next shape so as to catalyze movement. currently it's like being on a swing and pumping your legs in the middle of the arc instead of at the ends.
Yeah I feel like it could utilise some sensors and an ai as to know when to fire each servo, because you can see it just about to roll over but then another one of its servo’s push it *backwards* instead of forwards.
@@planetdesign4681 yeah, that would likely be easily handled by a simple inverse kinematics algorithm and an inertial measurement unit like they've used on their other robots.
9:25 this is the point where I realised it would have been so much easier to just write a machine learning regression algorithm to, enable the ball to learn to efficiently roll on its own, than to program it manually. Seriously consider this, it will not only save you a lot of time and efforts, but the ball would actually learn much better than you can ever hard-code from your limited human knowledge, logic and imagination. Because the complaint mechanism you built certainly had the capacity to roll itself perfectly in any direction, that too smoothly, with perfect enough actuation timing. It's like teaching a robot how to balance on a cycle, probably hard to hard-code but a cakewalk to let it learn on its own.
Maybe add a gyroscope (which again is optional, as the ML algorithm can just figure out which way is up from the visual markers that you can put on different sides, and let it see itself roll. Or you can talk a more hardware orientated approach with accelerometer and gyroscopes, and let it learn internally without using a camera and sensor, but both will produce a perfectly rolling ball that you can even control with a remote. (Setting the end point, and your system eill actuate itself to that point)
it's not difficult to hardcode at all, each (euler) angle from the gyro/accelerometer directly corrosponds to servo values (just the sum of an offset/phase-shifted sin() multiplied by the range of the servo), to give you a different resting orientation. To make it move, i'd guess to just add some more phase shift, so the natural resting position is just off (in the direction you want the robot to move). Right?
I certainly don't want to talk trash on James because this is a great project. But have a look at the code on github. It is literally just moving the servos to some predefined position and repeating regularly. The code is less than 75 lines long (incl. blank lines)! So I guess before throwing ML at it he'll probably add a bit of dynamical model first...
Have you considered using machine learning and train it to move effectively? Set up an enclosure and a sensor that tells the AI where the robot is in relation to a goal and let it teach itself how to move.
Re: Ghost cubes. Is it really a big deal to have the cubes touch each other? Could there be some progress if the cubes are exploded a bit relative to one another to allow room for the pivot?
My dude really just made one of those nerf collapsible footballs lmao For real though seeing your entire process for design and manufacturing is really cool
I love james recent content. The prototypes are so creative and interesting and the choice in footage is honest and i love how he shows the entire process with successes and fallbacks together. Such an awesome lil robot
This has been done. There's a white ball that's rolls along pushing out the relevant middle joint at the right time to keep up the momentum. It can then transform into pentapod bot and walk. Let me know if you want a link to it. Great work, otherwise. You're on your way to converging on the existing one.
Sorry, you are mistaken. The robot that James has made, and what Zenta has made is not exactly the same. Zenta uses the method of 'pushing' off the ground with many different 'arms'. James uses a mechanic where the robot is morphed to an extent where the center of gravity is always infront of where the ball wants to go, but it does look very similar, and I understand why you thought they were the same.
@@HaloWolf102 You're right about the differences in locomotion but I still consider them both as locomotive spherical robots. Obviously not 100% identical. Just like two different tetrapodal animals that move differently. One way might be more energy efficient etc but they're classified together further up the binomial hierarchy.
no necesarly is more important in this case program the ball whit some sort of retroinformation of the speed and posicion to know wat is the next step to move the ball
I tend to imagine things I know I can build, start building it and then hit a software bug, sleep it off then forget it ever happened and wonder why there is a vaguely phallic robot now on my desk.
The inspiration for this project reminds me of the old "Rubic's Magic" puzzle, a series of plates with images of rings, linked or un-linked, that you manipulated to make the rings appear to change from one state to the other. The edges are all linked with plastic filament and allowed it to flip and shift shapes.
3:04 "played around in cad"... didn't you already show your Cardboard Aided Design...? On a more serious note, adding an IMU to make it more dynamic seems like the next step. Right now the morphs sometimes push it along and sometimes seem to stop/slow it down. Also, the first cube hinge design you showed, with the servo doubling as a hinge would work. For the cubes to fold correctly they only really need to touch at the corners, you can clearance the edges/faces for the servos as much as you want/need.
James! You just need to add some inertia to the middle of the petals to get it to start on its own, take some steel bars and strap them on the inside petals.
Interesting to see the interplay of processes here between you as an engineer (albeit with aesthetics as a consideration) and Erik as an artist (albeit with engineering as an interest). An actual collab would be fascinating to watch.
If you're going with a sphere; there's a design I saw a while ago that was a twin-hexapod (basically two hexapods merged at each-other's back), which had legs that had the outer surface of the last segmentm, the "shins", shaped like a half of an orange's, uh, forgot the word, the wedge shapes you can separate inside the orange); so that when it would pull it's legs in the tips would join at the poles, and the tops of the hexapods' shins would meet at the equator. It was able to move both as a legged robot, but also by slightly pushing the legs out of the spherical formation it could roll along the equator, and turn by doing it asymetricaly between the two hexapods.
I was thinking the same, though I can't remember at all what it was called Edit: it may have been the "phlat ball." That's at least the same sort of toy
1.) decrease time between morphs when in motion 2.) can add 4 legs on servos inside in the gaps between the morphing pieces that make the ball shape so when you want to come to a stop you can deploy the legs and stop it 3.) trial and error programming until it works properly (timing changing , when slowing have it morph as if it were going backwards, to go at an angle you would move the two sides at a ratio so you can get that angle like 45° would be 1:1 and 30° would be 1:2 I believe) Those are the only things I can think of to have it work best Oh and throw in a gyro (if you don’t already) so you can check the angle of the ball in all axis and see which way it has to morph to go in either direction
Adding to the electromagnet comments, could you have free pivots and activate/deactivate them to lock faces in place? So instead of actuating the hinges you can make areas flexible or rigid
did you ever consider engaging all the servos? Having 2 adjacent side squish while the 2 opposite sides expand? seems like it would roll on 2 edges rather than the face. when it rolls on the face, it is also balancing on the face. You achieve a significant amount of balance because of the symmetry, but variations in the individual parts could throw off the center of balance.
I think Les has the right idea. Two on one side stretching and the opposite two compressing. No design change required. To make it roll you need to shift the center af gravity away from the sphere center. Then at the appropriate time return those servos to neutral and get the next group working. Maybe a gyro would help.
I love oyur videos James. You are willing show show things even when they are less successful or even complete disasters.. :D Thanks. BTW I think the key to getting like this ball to work is resonance coupled to precise feedback.. The same basic problem with all walking robots.
When you think this "morphing for movement" based design ideas, you should not limit your "robot" moving only on plain terrains. Interestingly, this idea is more common in water living things. (like jellyfish). You can challenge yourself by making a robot who runs under water, moves with morphing with elastic 3d printed parts, copper filaments for waterproof electric conduction, etc.. I've been highly inspired with your good work! :)
this. you have to factor in the center of gravity more to make it roll. It'll definitely have to be able to control the rate of motion, vs being a static cycle.
I really like the final design direction that you chose to go in. My 2 cents would be to perhaps play around with different tread and traction patterns and/or materials on the outside of the sphere sections might be able to improve response and control sensitivity and efficiency you have a wonderful brain, I wish we had been friends growing up. I might have made something of myself, instead of succumbing to my inner demons.
Cool concept! With the Dune movie coming out, I think building some kind of morphing worm robot would be cool... Or an ornithopter, but I guess it would be quite hard!
Holy crap just realized you made it to 1 million subs! Are you going to make a celebration Video? Congrats!!!! Anyways, love these concept models and working through their evolutions!
Having the flex triggered by a gyro would put this over the edge. As you said, rolling doesn’t require a constant pulse, you want to flex the downward side as it passes the vertical to accelerate, and before the vertical to slow down. 🤷🏻♂️. Using more pointy end pieces would encourage it to roll towards the centre of the flexible sides too. A gyro would also help you determine which sides were downwards, so you can use all 4. Love this project ❤️
I liked your ghost cube concept of putting servos in each cube, and using strings to pull them together. It occurs to me that to over come the cabling issue you could have the power/control cables run inside the strings you use to pull the cubes together.
Instead of hinges it seems like some form of electrical muscle/smart material would be significantly preferable for the morphing shape - being able to act almost exactly like the thin tape. I don't even know if anything like this is actually available though, because the expanding/contracting mechanism in them would have to be extremely small and thin.
What you could do is add a mechanism that can detect rolling and sync the motion of the servos with it's rolling speed so that the servos in the direction in which it is rolling will always contract and provide force in that direction at all speeds
Slap an accelerometer in that bad boy to sense orientation and actively control which segments of the ball to actuate. Bet with some nifty programming you could get basic steering and decent speed. Regardless, great work and would love to see you come back to this project
Just a quick thought of me, instead of using servo's cant you use electromagnets inside the cube? By attracting and propelling you can probably move them. And contact points on the surface of the flat can provide power, only problem that it is lost during the movement so there has to be a small battery inside to overcome the loss during transition. Great project with nice challenges.
Did you mentioned that you have too many wires along the boxes? Try wireless coding between the servos, and place the power wiring goes through the hinges or servos. Also make bigger boxes to include batteries inside..
As an open loop automata it does pretty well. Closing the loop with an IMU would be fascinating, ,love the linear style drive and topology, The right SW could really make it move I expect. Great work.Looking forward to see how you translate , like some sea urchins ? penta
For the cube concept you can use strong electro magnets. It works because I built a lame version of it for school. I had big cubes made of thin plastic sheets with electro magnets I made myself. With your abilities you can make a way better job than me.
Driving the cubes from a central motor could work if you have a thin link that connects the two cubes. The link might need to be-able to stretch as the cubes rotate over each other, but it could work.
An alternative to an imu might be capacitive sensors, because it's so symmetrical and omnidirectional, all you really care about, is what sides are touching/close to a surface
This really reminds me of the 4 legged robot ball from Carl Bugeja. Maybe there's some room for inspiration there, a lot of the problems you mentioned I also remember hearing in their video
I remember there was a mechanic using a liquid tubes contained within construction squares, and levels themselves. There was a robot where lasers were used and it was on target, or off target, the robot would do something in response. I can't for the life of me remember what it was.
Watching when you were working with the cardboard boxes. I couldn't help but think that you were too fixated on the boxes touching each other perfectly. However, all you really need is for the outer faces to meet perfectly. This would allow you to set up the internal structure however you want while still keeping the effect.
With the original cube hinges maybe you could power them with reversible magnets below the surface of each cube. If you simultaneously repelled the currently connected surfaces and attracted the adjacent ones you could probably flick it into new shapes without bulky powered hinges.
Very interesting (as always). Maybe a bit of weight in the middle of each of the four segments - that would give a bit more of an asymmetric balance force?
Would it possibly work better with a more sinusoidal transition? The movement of the servos seems a little binary, so there’s almost like a bump that it has to roll over before changing shape. Really cool design, love watching the process!
For the future in regards to the "ghost cubic", I think you called it that? Why not have something like a foot pop out of the center of the triangle to propel itself forward. It shouldn't hinder the morphing of the triangles as it seems, based on your prototype, that it has a space at the center of the structure that isn't hindered by anything, direction can be changed by just rotating the position at which the leg will pop out of, requires at least 2 motors or you could add a ton of motors to one structure for a ease of coding or response time.
About a mechanism for the boxes- in most cases there are only 2 transformations- means 2 states. That could maybe be achieved with electromagnets inside the boxes- so corresponding surfaces can repel and attract on command but still can only go in the right way because of a thin hinge like in the cardboard models. It would be a very fast an brutal transformation though
If you were to try the cube structures again, you could use a servo inside the cube pulling on a ribbon like the Jacob's ladder toy. That would give you the (near) zero clearance hinge you were looking for
@@jamesbruton Cool! I will be looking forward to seeing that video. I also wanted to ask some questions regarding walkers, can I ask them somewhere on your platform?
What about the corners are part of the hinge. Maybe something like this hinge on digi-key, but the inside mount has a gear on its internal that interacts with the drive from the other cube? (45 degree onto corner not off the 90. so the corner is chambered.) Digi-Key Part Number RPC2387-ND I am a huge fan of your work, keep up the creativity!
I wonder if you could use a gyroscope at the center of the ball to measure the angular rotation rate when it is pushed? If so maybe through some machine learning you can have the arduino control the arms through a changing tune PID protocol to flex and retract the arms at a frequency that corresponds to how fast the ball is rolling.
I would be interested in seeing this concept applied to a rolling wheel or rolling pair of wheels. A cylindrical wheel would be easier to control than this ball shape, and you could reuse the flexing mechanisms from this design to make the wheel roll. Having two such morphing wheels might even let it turn if the mechanics work out the way I think they would.
Maybe you can control this robot like a tank. Creating undulations in each plane that you can speed up or slow down through remote control. Then your ability to control the undulations in both planes may allow you to turn it as well while progressing it forward. Just a thought
Just an idea: add small weights in the middle of the sides, that way it trends towards coming to a rest on the sides instead of the ends. Maybe. Just an idea.
A droideka build from Star Wars would be so cool and I feel like it could really fit the style of this project too
Yup
That would be awesome!
Was just about to say the same! Great minds think alike!
I had the same thought. Also reminded me of this guys ball robot ruclips.net/video/yn3FWb-vQQ4/видео.html
That shouldn't be t to hard to build. You can steer and propel it using rotational moment and then have legs for turning by way of standing or cg shifting.
Looks like it would require a 'brain' to decide when to morph into the next shape so as to catalyze movement. currently it's like being on a swing and pumping your legs in the middle of the arc instead of at the ends.
Installs "Brain"
:What is my purpose?
:You're a ball.
:Oh My God !
Yeah I feel like it could utilise some sensors and an ai as to know when to fire each servo, because you can see it just about to roll over but then another one of its servo’s push it *backwards* instead of forwards.
@@planetdesign4681 yeah, that would likely be easily handled by a simple inverse kinematics algorithm and an inertial measurement unit like they've used on their other robots.
I would like to be brain of the ball robot
James: There is no stationary reference. We need an inertial measurement unit to help measure the angle.
Me: Ha ha look at the squidgy robot ball!
9:25 this is the point where I realised it would have been so much easier to just write a machine learning regression algorithm to, enable the ball to learn to efficiently roll on its own, than to program it manually.
Seriously consider this, it will not only save you a lot of time and efforts, but the ball would actually learn much better than you can ever hard-code from your limited human knowledge, logic and imagination.
Because the complaint mechanism you built certainly had the capacity to roll itself perfectly in any direction, that too smoothly, with perfect enough actuation timing.
It's like teaching a robot how to balance on a cycle, probably hard to hard-code but a cakewalk to let it learn on its own.
Maybe add a gyroscope (which again is optional, as the ML algorithm can just figure out which way is up from the visual markers that you can put on different sides, and let it see itself roll.
Or you can talk a more hardware orientated approach with accelerometer and gyroscopes, and let it learn internally without using a camera and sensor, but both will produce a perfectly rolling ball that you can even control with a remote.
(Setting the end point, and your system eill actuate itself to that point)
Do you know of any videos or articles on this approach? I would like to learn about this myself
it's not difficult to hardcode at all, each (euler) angle from the gyro/accelerometer directly corrosponds to servo values (just the sum of an offset/phase-shifted sin() multiplied by the range of the servo), to give you a different resting orientation. To make it move, i'd guess to just add some more phase shift, so the natural resting position is just off (in the direction you want the robot to move). Right?
Even if it's machine learnt, he's gonna have to add IMU measurements anyways in order to compute a reward for the RL agent.
I certainly don't want to talk trash on James because this is a great project. But have a look at the code on github. It is literally just moving the servos to some predefined position and repeating regularly. The code is less than 75 lines long (incl. blank lines)! So I guess before throwing ML at it he'll probably add a bit of dynamical model first...
Have you considered using machine learning and train it to move effectively? Set up an enclosure and a sensor that tells the AI where the robot is in relation to a goal and let it teach itself how to move.
I'm always amazed by your creations. Even one of your projects would probably take me a year to make!
@Gadget Addict. I know how you feel brother kkkk
Re: Ghost cubes. Is it really a big deal to have the cubes touch each other? Could there be some progress if the cubes are exploded a bit relative to one another to allow room for the pivot?
Or if the cubes are frameworks with internals?
chamfering the hinge edges could also give room for the hinge structure perhaps?
have a look at Zenta's MorpHex robot, does a simmilar method of movement but with each eighth (quadrant???) of the sphere being separated.
Had the same thought!
Love Zenta’s stuff!
This reminds me of one of those frisbee balls from the early 2000s
I had forgotten about those! What a blast from the past
My kids have one of those, they're out playing with it now 😂
same
They've made a comeback. My son got one for his birthday.
My dude really just made one of those nerf collapsible footballs lmao
For real though seeing your entire process for design and manufacturing is really cool
I love james recent content. The prototypes are so creative and interesting and the choice in footage is honest and i love how he shows the entire process with successes and fallbacks together. Such an awesome lil robot
This has been done. There's a white ball that's rolls along pushing out the relevant middle joint at the right time to keep up the momentum. It can then transform into pentapod bot and walk. Let me know if you want a link to it.
Great work, otherwise. You're on your way to converging on the existing one.
Can you post a link to that rolling robot?
@@cameronbest MorpHex. It's been a while... It's actually a hexapod.
ruclips.net/video/8yO-H22eNNg/видео.html
Sorry, you are mistaken. The robot that James has made, and what Zenta has made is not exactly the same.
Zenta uses the method of 'pushing' off the ground with many different 'arms'.
James uses a mechanic where the robot is morphed to an extent where the center of gravity is always infront of where the ball wants to go, but it does look very similar, and I understand why you thought they were the same.
@@HaloWolf102 You're right about the differences in locomotion but I still consider them both as locomotive spherical robots. Obviously not 100% identical. Just like two different tetrapodal animals that move differently. One way might be more energy efficient etc but they're classified together further up the binomial hierarchy.
@@mozkitolife5437 Would you consider James's BB8 robot the same as this?
Maybe something with 3 phases (3 * 120°) would provide more consistent rotation ?
Or 4, cycling around in one direction, instead of just switching between two states, indiscriminately of which direction it's trying to actually roll.
no necesarly is more important in this case program the ball whit some sort of retroinformation of the speed and posicion to know wat is the next step to move the ball
You've imagined something you know you can't build and prototyped it. Your content is an inspiration to armchair engineers everywhere... keep it up
I tend to imagine things I know I can build, start building it and then hit a software bug, sleep it off then forget it ever happened and wonder why there is a vaguely phallic robot now on my desk.
The inspiration for this project reminds me of the old "Rubic's Magic" puzzle, a series of plates with images of rings, linked or un-linked, that you manipulated to make the rings appear to change from one state to the other. The edges are all linked with plastic filament and allowed it to flip and shift shapes.
The thing that crossed my mind when you were talking about the connection between blocks was muscle wire.
I think it's funny you build robots every day but spin the display with your hands lol
Simplest solution to the problem ;)
I love the noise it makes kinda sounds like ASMR when it rolls, Love your projects keep up the great work!!!
3:04 "played around in cad"... didn't you already show your Cardboard Aided Design...?
On a more serious note, adding an IMU to make it more dynamic seems like the next step. Right now the morphs sometimes push it along and sometimes seem to stop/slow it down.
Also, the first cube hinge design you showed, with the servo doubling as a hinge would work. For the cubes to fold correctly they only really need to touch at the corners, you can clearance the edges/faces for the servos as much as you want/need.
I see you watch bad obsession too
James! You just need to add some inertia to the middle of the petals to get it to start on its own, take some steel bars and strap them on the inside petals.
Interesting to see the interplay of processes here between you as an engineer (albeit with aesthetics as a consideration) and Erik as an artist (albeit with engineering as an interest). An actual collab would be fascinating to watch.
great to see another video by james
It's basically Magikarp in ball shape...
Waiting for its evolution into Gyarados
I like that you took us along for the ride to discover this robot design. Interesting to see and gives me a couple ideas too.
Watching you goad these small bots on the floor reminds me of a proud parent helping a child to walk.
I remember seeing a hexapod that can fold up into a ball a few years ago. Would be neat to try and replicate that idea
MorpHex
I'm waiting for the moment when he becomes to Dr. Robotnik/Eggman. Another cool project James.
He's one good day away from becoming iron man.. But also one really bad day away from becoming a super villan 😂😂
I cant wait to see more of this little ball!
It's kinda big
Awesome video, thanks. For those wanting to skip the sponsor 7:08 to 8:16
Why not try your paper cube style one, and use flat electro magnets that can pull or repel?
I was thinking something like this too!
This would be a great candidate for algorithmic learning, given the speed/timing/directional response interplay, so many variables!
If you're going with a sphere; there's a design I saw a while ago that was a twin-hexapod (basically two hexapods merged at each-other's back), which had legs that had the outer surface of the last segmentm, the "shins", shaped like a half of an orange's, uh, forgot the word, the wedge shapes you can separate inside the orange); so that when it would pull it's legs in the tips would join at the poles, and the tops of the hexapods' shins would meet at the equator. It was able to move both as a legged robot, but also by slightly pushing the legs out of the spherical formation it could roll along the equator, and turn by doing it asymetricaly between the two hexapods.
Excellent project 👍
Isn't there a similar shaped toy, only instead of a robot it a frisbee that turns into a ball?
I was thinking the same, though I can't remember at all what it was called
Edit: it may have been the "phlat ball." That's at least the same sort of toy
@@HollowRoll that's it, spelled with a ph because we haven't progressed from the 90's
1.) decrease time between morphs when in motion
2.) can add 4 legs on servos inside in the gaps between the morphing pieces that make the ball shape so when you want to come to a stop you can deploy the legs and stop it
3.) trial and error programming until it works properly (timing changing , when slowing have it morph as if it were going backwards, to go at an angle you would move the two sides at a ratio so you can get that angle like 45° would be 1:1 and 30° would be 1:2 I believe)
Those are the only things I can think of to have it work best
Oh and throw in a gyro (if you don’t already) so you can check the angle of the ball in all axis and see which way it has to morph to go in either direction
Congratulations on your 1 million subscribers 👏👏👏
It's beautiful as always 💗
Congratulations on 1milliob subscribers keep making us inspired and think creative thank you love ur vids ❤
The cubes might be realisable by adding electro magnets to each cube that push and pull on various sides. What do you think?
I had the same thought. This is a great idea imo
You could maybe use electromagnets to move the cubes with a really thin link
Adding to the electromagnet comments, could you have free pivots and activate/deactivate them to lock faces in place? So instead of actuating the hinges you can make areas flexible or rigid
did you ever consider engaging all the servos? Having 2 adjacent side squish while the 2 opposite sides expand? seems like it would roll on 2 edges rather than the face. when it rolls on the face, it is also balancing on the face. You achieve a significant amount of balance because of the symmetry, but variations in the individual parts could throw off the center of balance.
I think Les has the right idea. Two on one side stretching and the opposite two compressing. No design change required. To make it roll you need to shift the center af gravity away from the sphere center. Then at the appropriate time return those servos to neutral and get the next group working. Maybe a gyro would help.
This looks interesting, you should definitely try out reinforcement learning to create a controller for it!
I love oyur videos James. You are willing show show things even when they are less successful or even complete disasters.. :D Thanks.
BTW I think the key to getting like this ball to work is resonance coupled to precise feedback.. The same basic problem with all walking robots.
Excellent as always James :)
When you think this "morphing for movement" based design ideas, you should not limit your "robot" moving only on plain terrains. Interestingly, this idea is more common in water living things. (like jellyfish). You can challenge yourself by making a robot who runs under water, moves with morphing with elastic 3d printed parts, copper filaments for waterproof electric conduction, etc.. I've been highly inspired with your good work! :)
james you have to design in a way you can change the center of gravity then it wil move toward it...
this. you have to factor in the center of gravity more to make it roll. It'll definitely have to be able to control the rate of motion, vs being a static cycle.
@@kasuraga right. And corresponding to the distance of COM and center of the ball youll get speed. if it can be modeled ...
Intresting concept with a more sophisticated controlling software and sensors as you said
seems like it needs an angle sensor, it's being driven synchronously when it needs to morph based on its angle
I really like the final design direction that you chose to go in. My 2 cents would be to perhaps play around with different tread and traction patterns and/or materials on the outside of the sphere sections might be able to improve response and control sensitivity and efficiency you have a wonderful brain, I wish we had been friends growing up. I might have made something of myself, instead of succumbing to my inner demons.
You are welcome for the 1 million subscribers:)
You would need to add a giroscope and program it to shift in order to always keep a lump behind it and move that way instead of in a timer
Cool concept! With the Dune movie coming out, I think building some kind of morphing worm robot would be cool... Or an ornithopter, but I guess it would be quite hard!
Holy crap just realized you made it to 1 million subs! Are you going to make a celebration Video? Congrats!!!! Anyways, love these concept models and working through their evolutions!
We’ll done I just realised you had 1m subscribers it was a fun journey to get you where you are but keep up the good work
(So I have the urge to comment this to every of James' video, but)
WHERE DOES THIS GUYS TAKE ALL OF THIS TIME TO MAKE THESE EXTENSIVE PROJECTS!!!???
Having the flex triggered by a gyro would put this over the edge. As you said, rolling doesn’t require a constant pulse, you want to flex the downward side as it passes the vertical to accelerate, and before the vertical to slow down. 🤷🏻♂️. Using more pointy end pieces would encourage it to roll towards the centre of the flexible sides too. A gyro would also help you determine which sides were downwards, so you can use all 4. Love this project ❤️
I liked your ghost cube concept of putting servos in each cube, and using strings to pull them together. It occurs to me that to over come the cabling issue you could have the power/control cables run inside the strings you use to pull the cubes together.
Instead of hinges it seems like some form of electrical muscle/smart material would be significantly preferable for the morphing shape - being able to act almost exactly like the thin tape. I don't even know if anything like this is actually available though, because the expanding/contracting mechanism in them would have to be extremely small and thin.
Perhaps pneumatic rubber tubing?
What you could do is add a mechanism that can detect rolling and sync the motion of the servos with it's rolling speed so that the servos in the direction in which it is rolling will always contract and provide force in that direction at all speeds
Zenta's MorpHex has always been a big favourite of mine
Slap an accelerometer in that bad boy to sense orientation and actively control which segments of the ball to actuate. Bet with some nifty programming you could get basic steering and decent speed. Regardless, great work and would love to see you come back to this project
Just a quick thought of me, instead of using servo's cant you use electromagnets inside the cube? By attracting and propelling you can probably move them. And contact points on the surface of the flat can provide power, only problem that it is lost during the movement so there has to be a small battery inside to overcome the loss during transition. Great project with nice challenges.
For a moment, i thought James was building a Bakugan!
Pretty cool concept, I enjoyed watching it :)
Did you mentioned that you have too many wires along the boxes? Try wireless coding between the servos, and place the power wiring goes through the hinges or servos. Also make bigger boxes to include batteries inside..
As an open loop automata it does pretty well. Closing the loop with an IMU would be fascinating, ,love the linear style drive and topology, The right SW could really make it move I expect. Great work.Looking forward to see how you translate , like some sea urchins ? penta
For the cube concept you can use strong electro magnets.
It works because I built a lame version of it for school. I had big cubes made of thin plastic sheets with electro magnets I made myself.
With your abilities you can make a way better job than me.
Driving the cubes from a central motor could work if you have a thin link that connects the two cubes. The link might need to be-able to stretch as the cubes rotate over each other, but it could work.
Reminds me of tumblebutts. Would love to see this turn into a droideka that a previous person suggested.
An alternative to an imu might be capacitive sensors, because it's so symmetrical and omnidirectional, all you really care about, is what sides are touching/close to a surface
Can you use electromagnets embedded internally on the sides of the cubes to push and pull the faces of the cubes?
My thoughts exactly. They'd also provide the pivot of a hinge.
Thought the same thing, but rare earth magnets on a servo that moves it to and from the face of the cube
everything good until the thing gets stuck to a metal surface
I always enjoy your videos James. I’m just never sure why 😜
Would love to see you try a holographic personal assistant sometime in the future.
That's one step closer to Samus Morphball
This really reminds me of the 4 legged robot ball from Carl Bugeja. Maybe there's some room for inspiration there, a lot of the problems you mentioned I also remember hearing in their video
I remember there was a mechanic using a liquid tubes contained within construction squares, and levels themselves. There was a robot where lasers were used and it was on target, or off target, the robot would do something in response. I can't for the life of me remember what it was.
Watching when you were working with the cardboard boxes. I couldn't help but think that you were too fixated on the boxes touching each other perfectly.
However, all you really need is for the outer faces to meet perfectly. This would allow you to set up the internal structure however you want while still keeping the effect.
Super cool next step: Needs to "balance" itself.
A tennis ball pattern for the outer ball might be beneficial for the issue of the ball losing momentum on the ends
With the original cube hinges maybe you could power them with reversible magnets below the surface of each cube. If you simultaneously repelled the currently connected surfaces and attracted the adjacent ones you could probably flick it into new shapes without bulky powered hinges.
You should use gyroscopes to detect the angle it’s at. And use that to make sure the morphing is at the correct timing
There is a video from MIT using cubes you could use the same method I guess
ruclips.net/video/6aZbJS6LZbs/видео.html
Very interesting (as always).
Maybe a bit of weight in the middle of each of the four segments - that would give a bit more of an asymmetric balance force?
This guy is a genius!
Would it possibly work better with a more sinusoidal transition? The movement of the servos seems a little binary, so there’s almost like a bump that it has to roll over before changing shape. Really cool design, love watching the process!
For the future in regards to the "ghost cubic", I think you called it that? Why not have something like a foot pop out of the center of the triangle to propel itself forward. It shouldn't hinder the morphing of the triangles as it seems, based on your prototype, that it has a space at the center of the structure that isn't hindered by anything, direction can be changed by just rotating the position at which the leg will pop out of, requires at least 2 motors or you could add a ton of motors to one structure for a ease of coding or response time.
About a mechanism for the boxes- in most cases there are only 2 transformations- means 2 states. That could maybe be achieved with electromagnets inside the boxes- so corresponding surfaces can repel and attract on command but still can only go in the right way because of a thin hinge like in the cardboard models. It would be a very fast an brutal transformation though
Would be cool to try a ball robot with pegs that push out in whatever direction is needed to control motion
If you were to try the cube structures again, you could use a servo inside the cube pulling on a ribbon like the Jacob's ladder toy. That would give you the (near) zero clearance hinge you were looking for
I would love to see more cycloidal reduction content. Also maybe something along the lines of "baby's first mech"
openDog V3 entire mechanical build is coming up in a few weeks with 12 Cycloidal drives.
@@jamesbruton Cool! I will be looking forward to seeing that video. I also wanted to ask some questions regarding walkers, can I ask them somewhere on your platform?
What about the corners are part of the hinge. Maybe something like this hinge on digi-key, but the inside mount has a gear on its internal that interacts with the drive from the other cube? (45 degree onto corner not off the 90. so the corner is chambered.)
Digi-Key Part Number
RPC2387-ND
I am a huge fan of your work, keep up the creativity!
I wonder if you could use a gyroscope at the center of the ball to measure the angular rotation rate when it is pushed?
If so maybe through some machine learning you can have the arduino control the arms through a changing tune PID protocol to flex and retract the arms at a frequency that corresponds to how fast the ball is rolling.
I would be interested in seeing this concept applied to a rolling wheel or rolling pair of wheels. A cylindrical wheel would be easier to control than this ball shape, and you could reuse the flexing mechanisms from this design to make the wheel roll.
Having two such morphing wheels might even let it turn if the mechanics work out the way I think they would.
It would be cool to see you try out a "compliant" robot. It is a soft inflatable robot.
Really impressive!
Why not considering magnets for the cubes ?
Definitely gonna need a couple gyros and a logic computer, but this is an awesome idea
An interesting way for movement can be magnets attracting and repelling each other
Maybe you can control this robot like a tank. Creating undulations in each plane that you can speed up or slow down through remote control. Then your ability to control the undulations in both planes may allow you to turn it as well while progressing it forward. Just a thought
Just an idea: add small weights in the middle of the sides, that way it trends towards coming to a rest on the sides instead of the ends. Maybe. Just an idea.