This Giant Robot Holds the Record for World's Largest Rideable Hexapod
Don’t look now but the spider of your nightmares is coming towards you. UK-based robotics engineer Matt Denton, has created this unbelievable rideable hexapod robot called "Mantis."
The massive and terrifying robot is 2.8m x 5m and weighs nearly two tons. Unsurprisingly the contraption made it into the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest rideable hexapod ever created.
Denton explained that he was first inspired to become an engineer by the AT-ATs in the Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back. He first saw the film when he was eight and knew immediately what to dedicate his life to.
Denton is now living his dream working on films like Harry Potter and more recently on Star Wars Episode VII in which he helped design the droid BB-8.
Mantis the 6-legged robot can be controlled both from inside the cockpit as well as remotely via WIFi.
The limbs are driven by 2.2 liter Perkins Motor and that power the spider to walk at a reassuring 1 km/h. Even though it's slow, Mantis has a broad range of movements manipulated by two three-axis joysticks and 28 buttons.
Denton’s odyssey towards Mantis began by designing toy-sized hexapods in 2009. He experimented with different materials building more than 20 individual spiders.
One was even used in a Harry Potter film to assist the animation of a six-legged turtle. The final version of Mantis took more than three years to build and it wasn’t without hiccups.
An earlier version collapsed after the hydraulics failed when it tried to stand. Denton is already working on an even larger version of Matis that he hopes will be able to go underwater as well.