Spartan Daily - Serving San Jose State University since 1934

Issue date: 5/13/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Chad Ziemendorf The "Eight-Legged Walker" is displayed in the lobby of the Engineering building, Monday afternoon.

An eight-legged metal and wood beast briskly walked down an Engineering building hallway, while being ridden by a student.

Five students from the engineering department spent a year creating this eight-legged mobile machine as their senior design project.

"We wanted to make a machine that was a little bit different, something that was able to navigate off terrain without having some of the disadvantages of a wheel, but has all the advantages of a leg," said Daniel Wiseman, a senior mechanical engineering major and the project's team leader.

Wiseman said he came up with the idea about a year ago. The team wanted to build something similar to a rescue vehicle, exploration vehicle or a vehicle to explore other planets, he said.

"We spent last semester dealing with all of the design work, the computer models and designing the mechanism," Wiseman said. "This semester has just been fabrication and construction."

The 350-pound "Eight-legged Walker," as the team calls it, is piloted by a joystick next to the wooden chair centered in the middle of the steel.

Wiseman said it is strong enough to carry someone up to 200 pounds.

"It is earth-friendly," he said. "Everything on the machine is recyclable and it's zero emissions, of course, because it's all electric."

Oscar Joya, a senior mechanical engineering major, said he helped with the project from beginning to end.

"A lot of people underestimated that this could be done," he said. "That served as a motivation for us to work hard."

The raw materials for the eight-legged walker were costly, Joya said, but the team secured a sponsor called Ecopeds, a company that makes electrically assisted scooters and bicycles.

Daniel Aldama, a senior mechanical engineering major, was the welder for the project.

"The best part is driving it," he said. "It kind of feels like being on a horse."

The machine's battery power isn't at its full capacity today, Wiseman said, but it has the potential to walk about a mile, at five to six mph.

"We designed it to be just a brisk walk," said Salvador Alvarez, a senior mechanical engineering major. "We didn't want to make it that fast because of the materials we were using."

Continued...

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