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This six-legged walking device looks like a crab or a spider at first glance. It was an old 1980s vintage device that was collecting dust in another department. Instructor Joe Marriott saw it and thought, “This would make a good project.”

The students, Mitchell Boutilier, Stefan Mitchell and Paige Moore were tasked with developing algorithms for hexapod movement, creating a voice control of hexapod platform and incorporating robotic arm for object manipulation. The first challenge was to install the modern technology in the vintage robot so it could walk and get the arm to go up and down and grip things. The added challenge was to make it voice controlled.

Marriott said with this project students learned about the mechanical side of mechatronics.

“There’s more to walking than you realize, making a robot walk is more complicated than turning a wheel; the students had a lot of fun with this.”