Now you can 3d print a man’s best friend
A low-cost, 3D-printable quadrupedal robot called the LAD Dog has been designed by maker Lizandro Duran.
It is controlled by an Arduino Nano microcontroller and an Android smartphone or tablet app.
The project,
which Duran released under a permissive license for others to build and remix,
is called “LAD Dog,” a cute little dog robot that you can control with an Arduino Nano board and your smartphone.
“What’s more, you won’t have to spend $500 on a single actuator to build this little robot.
This is undoubtedly one of the cheapest and simplest quadruped robots to construct.”
In addition to a 3D-printed framework and moving parts
, the robot is intended to use inexpensive off-the-shelf parts, such as cheap hobby servo motors.
Again, to keep costs down and make the design as widely available as possible, the power source is standard AA batteries.
The robot’s companion app,
which is only at this time accessible on Android devices, provides straightforward remote control:
It is possible to program the quadrupedal robot to move forward,
backward, sidestep left and right,
and turn either clockwise or counterclockwise.
There’s not much in the way of onboard intelligence,
but there is nothing to prevent the addition of sensors for autonomous operation.
