Servos - SuperTec S03 3.4Kg.cm
Controller - Parallax Basic Stamp-1
Body - 4mm Birch ply
Power - 4 AA cells

• BigFoot was the first two servo-motor Biped Walking Robot in the world;
  
• was the first Biped Walking Robot to be sold as a kit;
  
• was the first Biped Walking Robot which didn't use 'overlapping feet' (as is common in toys) to be commercially available as a production item;
  
• and was the first commercially available Biped Walking Robot which was able to step and turn.

• It was the robot design which introduced to the world the concepts of
  1. sideways tipping feet to enable its weight to be transferred from one foot to the other.
     
  2. skid turning where to effect a turn the robot stands upright and one foot slides back while the other slides forward, just like a tank.
     
  These are now the de facto standard methods for small biped robots.

• BigFoot has been the inspiration for many variants, see www.davidbuckley.net/DB/Inspire.htm
  including Parallax's Toddler and Penguin, which in turn led to my Amblers.

BigFoot was conceived because, following on from my design and development of the pneumatically powered Shadow Biped Walker, which incorporated twenty-eight muscles and fifty-six pneumatic valves together with numerous sensors to control the seven degrees of freedom per leg, I decided to make a much simpler mechanism to eliminate many of the troublesome variables.

The photographs in 'A Minimalist Approach to Biped Walking Robots' show BigFoot with a label marked JCN (Jason) so why BigFoot?. JCN was the working name courtesy of Edward Hulme who suggested that similar to HAL which is one letter before IBM, JCN is one letter after. However Sue at Milford Instruments took one look and immediately rechristened JCN as BigFoot.

BigFoot is the original two servo Biped robot and many copies of the design can be found on the web including Toddler from Parallax Inc. BigFoot was designed by David Buckley and aimed specifically at the beginner in electronics and robotics. The control-board is ready assembled consequently the kit requires no special knowledge of electronics. The BigFoot kit is easy to assemble using a small screwdriver, a pair of pliers and wood-glue.

BigFoot has two servos enabling true biped walking and turning, stands about 22 centimetres high and weighs 450 grams (8.75" high and weighs 16oz). Power is supplied by four AA cells and the control processor is a Basic-Stamp1 from Parallax Inc.

The two servos allow BigFoot to shift its weight from one foot to the other and lift either foot off the ground and also to move its legs forwards and backwards. Turning is done by standing upright and sliding the feet in a tank style turn. A simple fully documented Basic program is provided. The supplied program operates BigFoot in a static balance walking mode.

BigFoot is fitted with two toe switches, one on the front of each foot, activated when the wires seen in the photo touch obstacles. Bigfoot can then be made to step back and turn away.

download walking video .wmv 90.3k