TrotBot's lower leg pins tend to come out when the legs experience sideways forces, as can happen when turning TrotBot on terrain with a lot of friction (like on thick carpeting).

If the legs aren't snapped back in place, then friction on the pin's lips will wear them down, and the pins will no longer join with a sharp "snap", causing them to pull out more easily.  Ideally, joints should be 3 beams wide and symmetrical like the red chain of beams below, which prevents pins from pulling out or bending sideways when bearing weight: 

However, using LEGO's parts to sandwich TrotBot's leg joints inline like the red beams above would add a lot of width to the robot.  Instead, I sandwiched the leg joints by attaching an additional 3x5 L-shaped beam to the outside of the legs, which is a bit off center but still works well with LEGO's high strength-to-weight ratios.  I tested these new attachments by turning TrotBot on some thick carpeting, which would usually cause a few of the leg's pins to pull out.   Below the video are some pictures of how I added the parts, and I used these attachments in my TrotBot version 3 builds. 

I've got a few other ideas to test over the next few weeks, and then I'll post some new TrotBot instructions with the improvements. UPDATE:  Here are the new instructions with a part list.

Recently I’ve been working on getting TrotBot to climb 1/3-scale stairs. The first video below shows TrotBot climbing stairs  at the standard 32 degree angle of life-size stairs, both with and without wheelie bars.  The second video shows TrotBot attempting steeper 38 degree angle stairs without wheelie bars, and required a bit of expert driving to avoid flipping backwards!

​In this process, I found that TrotBot’s center of gravity needed to be lowered to prevent it from flipping backwards, so I lowered the battery box.  

In general, vehicles handle better with a lower center of gravity, so I should have mounted the battery box lower in my original instructions.  

​Instructions to modify TrotBot to lower its battery box: ​

These instructions require the vertically oriented 7 hole beams that mount the battery box to the frame be replaced by 11 hole beams. Using 11 hole beams allows the battery box to be mounted a half dozen holes lower than it would be otherwise.

Start by removing the battery box and vertical 7 hole beams from the TrotBot frame, and get four 11 hole beams to replace the 7 hole beams.   NOTE:  it's easier to pull the two sides of TrotBot apart incrementally while rotating each metal support rod between pulls so that the LEGO beams can slide along the rods.

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The following photo shows the attachment of two 11 hole beams to the battery box along with the 9 hole beams that attaches to them to the metal support rods to form the hypotenuse of the frame triangle. The 9 hole beams that are used as the hypotenuse will remain on the metal support rods and are only in the pictures to provide context.

Attach the 11 and 9 hole beams together to form the basis for the frame triangle. The 9 hole beams must be mounted on the 5th hole from the top of the 11 hole beam. 

Mount these parts onto the battery box. Notice that the 9 hole beams are mounted on the outside of the 11 hole beams, that they are facing away ​from the battery box. 

Repeat this process for the other side of the battery box.

Next mount this structure back into the TrotBot frame.   

And that's it, TrotBot with a lowered center of gravity - time to work on TrotBot's next climbing challenge:

I had a great time sharing TrotBot with this amazing group of students and teachers - thank you so much for inviting me!  Ben

No TrotBots were harmed nor fell off cliffs during the making of this film in Moab, UT  

I've been thinking about creating an EV3 Strider Ver 2, but to handle the increased weight and width Strider needs to be improved in a few ways, like by increasing the amount of foot-contact it has with the ground.

One way to increase foot-contact is to add four more legs. To check how this would smooth the gait I simulated one side of a 12-legged Strider (Ver 2), and if you watch the video below you'll see Strider bounce whenever the feet touching the ground switch. This bouncing shouldn't be much of a problem at LEGO scale, but it would be at large scale.
 
While a scaled-up Strider's linkage could be optimized for a smoother gait, it can also be smoothed by adding feet that are shaped to offset the gait's bumpiness. As an example, in the second half of the video I added small triangular feet to the front legs, which act like heels and toes. These feet reduce the gait's bumpiness by about 1/3rd.  However, the toes are more likely to catch on obstacles, which can cause the linkage to lock and gears to grind.  

The gait of Strider Ver 3 can also be smoothed by adding toes:

​You can find a half dozen other variations of Strider's linkage that can be smoothed by adding toes on Strider's Linkage Optimizer page, like this: 

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Feet with curved bottoms that are shaped to offset the bumpiness of a particular linkage should be even more effective at smoothing gaits - at least when walking on smooth ground.
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Here's Strider Ver 3 in a LEGO prototype with the above simulated toes:

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And here's the same Strider linkage with 8 legs plus longer toes of length 3 and a short heel of length 1:

​Scott Anderson has taken TrotBot to a new level.  In addition to using modern Maker tools and gear, Scott reduced TrotBot's width by printing leg parts that link in-line, strengthened the upper leg parts by printing them as bend-resistant triangles,  and added those cool hinged feet! 

Scott's shares how he created his TrotBot here.  

​​I rushed my Klann Ver 2 build and didn't build the outer frames in an optimal way:

The only thing keeping this frame's corners at right angles are the two 3x5 L-shaped LEGO parts.  If this frame were put under a lot of force, like would happen at a larger scale, the corners would be subjected to torque that could easily cause the rectangle to collapse. To avoid this diagonals need to be added, which will convert the rectangles into triangles and lock the corner's angles.
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The challenge with walkers in LEGO is we often need diagonals for rectangles that define the linkage's parameters.  In other words, these diagonals often need to be the hypotenuses of right triangles.   As you can see below, my Klann's upper support rods are 7 holes above the motor's axle, and the lower support rods are 2 holes below the motor's axle.  Neither of these lengths work with a 3-4-5 or 6-8-10 right triangle with LEGO parts for hypotenuses. What can we do using the integer lengths of LEGO's beams?  

NOTE:  When determining the length of LEGO beams the first hole is always counted as 0!  If you don't measure LEGO beam lengths in this way you won't be able to use the Pythagorean theorem to calculate which beams to use as hypotenuses.
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Fortunately, with LEGO we don't have to be at precise integer numbers, and we can use hypotenuses that are close enough. 
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1.  Hypotenuses for rectangles of height 7. 
Plugging in a 90 degree angle with a side length of 7, plus a few other whole number sides into the Pythagorean theorem yields this near integer number triangle:

​I used this triangle for Klann's inner frame where two 9 hole beams create hypotenuses of length 8:

I also used this triangle for TrotBot's frame:

​2. Hypotenuses for rectangles of height 9. 
We can also connect the top and bottom beams of Klann's frame with a hypotenuse:

Plugging a 90 degree angle with a side length of 9, plus a few other whole number sides into the Pythagorean theorem yields another near integer number triangle:

So, 13 hole LEGO beams can be used to lock Klann's outer frames into triangles, like this:

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Here are a few other useful triangles for LEGO frames:

​​Also, the below 5-3 bent beam can be used as a hypotenuse.

You can create more triangles by lengthening a side of the above parts by attaching a LEGO beam to it.

​The first result of that effort was TrotBot's heel linkage.  As you can see below, TrotBot's heel strikes before the main foot, resulting in a smoother gait and lower power requirements (for an analogy of why bumpy gaits require more power, think how much harder it is to do lunges than it is to simply walk).  

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Another benefit of TrotBot's heel is it steps higher on the backside of the foot-path, allowing TrotBot's rear legs to step about as high as the front legs to avoid getting stuck astride obstacles, as can be seen in this heel-path simulation:

​​Without its heel, TrotBot's rear legs probably would have gotten stuck on some of these 2x4s:

​Klann's ability to clear obstacles is also improved by adding a claw-like heel to the inner side of it's legs:

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We've also played around with a few ideas for active toes that push down on the ground as the foot begins to lift:   

Smoothing gaits with shaped feet is explored in Feet Part 2

You can access or download Catweazel's instructions and efficiently purchase parts via his Rebrickable page.  Thank you Mr. Leefers!
​Ben

Over my break I ran some optimization code to improve Strider's footpath. Here's how Strider ver 2 looks: 

And here's a sample of a LEGO version walking:

 I kept this as an entry-level build with only one motor. ​ Build instructions are here