Laser-cut Jansen Arduino Walky Thing

Probably difficult to believe, but I do deliberately try not to be too robot-orientated.

This however I can’t resist because it combines so many of my favourite threads – Theo Jansen Machines, Arduinos, Rapid-Fabbing AND the designs etc are open-source, and up on Thingverse, inviting people to adapt/evolve.

(via)

Instructions / Materials / photos etc here

The bits are for sale or you can make them yourself etc… this seems to be an emerging trend with open-source hardware. Varying levels of kitset completion, priced accordingly… so if you don’t want to solder, you buy a slightly more expensive, slightly more complete one. In this case the only choices are, 1) do it all yourself, 2) buy the parts and assemble yourself.

But is it useful for anything?

Indirectly maybe – we’re learning how to do open-source hardware.

What we need I think is some sort of template – some macro-format that allows a standardised way of presenting/storing designs/part-lists/instructions/photos/videos/change-logs etc etc. We can probably apply what we’ve learned from software – but hardware is different.