Jamie's racing spiders

[Weaver]

Mentioned this at the weekend and people seemed interested so here we go...

Jamie Hyneman of Mythbusters fame came up with an interesting project to build "racing spiders", firstly as small RC vehicles and eventually as manned vehicles. They got sponsorship from a project management software company, and the story is being released in short videos on Tested.com's youtube channel. We've had three episodes so far:

Episode 1 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBm1I8gpeCs
Episode 2 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kdE8ANxPjw
Episode 3 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiUWWYrDZ5s

Evernote (sponsor) site about the project : http://evernote.com/projects/
Tested's Youtube channel : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiDJtJKMICpb9B1qf7qjEOA
Tested Website : http://www.tested.com/

I'll try to remember to post new episodes up on here but you can avoid relying on me (always a good plan) by subscribing to the Youtube channel (for free) and selecting e-mail notifications.

[Weaver]

Episode 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87h5Bwy6rUg&feature=em-uploademail

Apparently that's it for now.

[Gondor]

I have been following this on Tested as well as several other things that both Jamie and Adam have been doing there. Quite interesting. 

Gondor

[Captain Canada]

Very cool. I cheated a little and watched half of the first episode and then part of the third, where the cheat wheel came in  Off to my appointment but I'll be watching in full when I get home.

PS- Maybe some of us could use the Evernote software around here 

[Weaver]

Post mortem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hg02Z5OQ750

[PR19_Kit]

'.... the structure's only as strong as its weakest link..........'

Er, yes. That's somewhere on Page 1 of Engineering Structures as I recall.......

[Weaver]

Actually that didn't bother me as much as not realising that the legs would have fore and aft bending forces on them....

The pully stiffness problem was, I think basically down to it being a near-garage project so as many COTS components, including brackets, as possible were used. An aerospace or automotive prototype shop with 12 months and an actual budget would have slaughtered it.

I think the concept's good, but it needs to be fully engineered from scratch to make it really work, and that wouldn't be cheap. I might also be inclined to change the cables to a 'corners of a square' arrangement where you have two cables in tension resisting both vertical AND lateral forces, but that makes for a much more complicated control and power system. Also, they need to put the engine in the middle for CofG reasons: it might make the control system more complicated, but it would have the virtue of spacing the legs out more to avoid lock-ups.