Making Simple Robots

Chapter 2. Robots That Get Around

How often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else.

— R. Buckminster Fuller

One of the most interesting challenges in robot design is figuring out how to get from place to place. Traditionally, robot locomotion has fallen into two categories: bipeds that walk in something approximating a human gait, and rolling robots that drive around like vehicles. But in recent years the options for robot locomotion have taken off. Today it’s not unusual to see robots that can fly, swim, climb, creep, or crawl—and some that can move in ways that are hard to categorize. The advantage of these alternative modes of transportation is that they allow robots to access places humans can’t easily ...