4 Legged Walker (version 2)

After the failure of my previous 4 legged walker, I tried to make a new model which was much smaller. The main focus of this construction is of reducing the weight of the model, so that the LEGO motors can lift the robot easily. I was successful in that respect, and I managed a quite compact design which can be seen here (left), side by side with the previous model (right):

It again uses 2 XL motors for lifting the robot, and 2 M motors to make it advance. One of the strategies I used to make the robot smaller is to change the way M motors controlled the legs. In the older robot, 1 M motor would control legs that were diagonally opposite, in this one, one M motor controls the two legs in the front of the robot, whereas the other M motor controls the two legs in the back. This saves lots of gears. The first version of the robot can be better seen in this picture:

Although this robot does not have the problem of the old one of lifting it's own weight. It still has a balance problem. As soon as it has to stand on two legs, it falls down immediately. However, it moves very smoothly as can be seen in this video:

After tweaking the legs and the structure to make it stronger, I managed to make it walk. However, since the feet rotate when the legs move forwards and backwards, the robot does not advance properly. I'll try to solve that in future models. Here's some more pictures and a video with the new feet.