This revolutionary new book describes how to build an inexpensive,small-legged robot, and includes the robot kit. The book providesinformation on the design and control of legged robots and acurriculum for education that presents experiments and projectsthat illustrates what they teach. The experiments lead the readeron a tour of the current state of research in robotics. Stiquitohas also been used to teach in primary, secondary, and high schoolcurricula. The robot is intended for use as a research andeducational platform to study computational sensors, subsumptionarchitectures, neural gait control, behavior of social insects, andmachine vision. The robot may be powered and controlled through atether or autonomously with and on-board power supply andelectronics.





The book begins with an introduction that describes the birth ofStiquito. The chapters that follow describe the building process,its modifications, and its increased load capacity. Other chaptersexamine designs for simple controllers to enhance the functionalityof the robot and to give the robot intelligence and SCORPIOhardware designs for performing independent, intelligentoperations. The text also illustrates Stiquito's uses in educationby presenting lab exercises, describing the use of nitinol inclassroom experiments, and providing a robotics curriculum forundergraduates. It examines further research on the role of logicin a mobile robot's sensors, control, and locomotion; Stiquito'splatform for AI; and simulation of a robot guided by vision. Thebook concludes with a discussion of the future fornitinol-propelled walking robots.