STRANDBEEST
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Status: In Progress
The Strandbeest is a walking mechanism based around the linkage created my Theo Jansen which turns rotational motion into an almost life like walking movement. I created this 3D printed version to test making print in place models, and master modeling in general.
Inspiration
I have always been interested in the strandbeest by Theo Jansen, and when I got a model of one I was even more intrigued by the design. I was wanting to 3D print one but I couldn’t find any models that were simple and didn’t require any outside hardware. Since I had some spare time I decided this would be a fun project to mess around with.
Goals
My main goals were to create a model which didn’t take much assembly and could be built with no hardware. Also at the time, I had been looking into a master modeling workflow and I thought this would be a perfect project to use this in so I also included this.
To do this I decided that I would make the legs modular and create them to print in place as a single unit. My hope with this is to reduce the print count since each leg would otherwise have six links and the smallest strandbeest would be made of 12 legs. Also, I was not sure what size I wanted to make this model, and since it was using a master model it was rather easy to create this model as an equation-based model so I could change the overall size based on a single dimension
I based this model on the information given by Theo Jansen as shown in this photo.
Master Sketch
I was able to then create a master sketch based on the relations from that illustration as shown here.
Results
then modeled the links from there, doing this I was able to make a leg able to be printed in two parts while having six separately moving parts. I also created the center bulkhead which also had the cam that moves the legs in succession. The printed model can be seen here, there have already been a few renditions to get the tolerances correct on the joints, and now it prints consistently and smoothly.
Future Plans
At this point I have the legs themselves very repeatable and I am fairly happy with them. Although I am not happy with the bulkhead as the cam needs to be thicker since it easily breaks, or I may need to redesign it to be printed in a different orientation. Overall I am happy with where this has gone and I plan to continue it when I find the time to complete this project.