Mark C main tasks and goals for summer 2003

Main goals are to wind up the ONR MURI with a working version of iSprawl that we can use for any further experiments with antennae, dynamics modeling, turning etc. I think the tether is influencing the motion of the robots too much. Sang Bae Kim will hopefully be the main engineer of iSprawl but I am committed to working on this too. First step is to obtain a working transmission that goes from electric motor to imulsive forces at the legs. Basic design is needed end of June if we are going to succeed.

Regarding ClimbingRobots the most important goal is to get some foot designs that work "well enough" to be further investigated in the fall. "Well enough" means that we can stick to a variety of surfaces with enough force that low-speed climbing is possible for a lightweight robot. To get to this point, we need to be testing several different ideas out during July. We need to fabricate some small samples using fishooks, foam core, glue, sticky materials, shape memory alloy -- whatever works. The gumbot will be useful for testing basic adhesion concepts. We may also want to consider retrofitting small feet onto one of the battery powered climbing toy robots in place of the suction cups.

In parallel - more theoretical work on modeling dynamics of running and climbing robots can proceed.

I am away Wed, Thurs June 18-19 and again from July 3-15. During the time in July I may try to visit Marc Raibert's lab in Boston (BDI) since they are going to become partners...

-- MarkCutkosky - 17 Jun 2003