Robots can be a fun but a very expensive hobby. In the past, hexapod robots have already fascinated die-hard robot hobbyists and have enjoyed worldwide fame. They are crab-resembling contraptions which have six legs to give them enough flexibility and terrain-manipulating capacity. The downside is the complexity involved in creating one and the lack of designing ingenuity brought by its closed and rarely updated features. Current hexapod kits sell anywhere between $ 1,000 – $ 2,000. Defying all these shackles on hobby robotics is Hexy the Hexapod, a pocket-friendly six-legged robot.
Hexy is a cute and fun little robot buddy created by Joseph Schlesinger who has dreamed of creating a cheap but serious robotics kit. The robot creation has already earned around a whopping $ 86,000 in pledges since it hit Kickstarter in May. This is beyond the original target of thirteen grand.
Hexy’s basic components are actually standard such as a collection of laser-cut acrylic, twenty servos, an ultrasonic distance enabled sensor, and a microcontroller which is Arduino-compatible. The whole assembly is light and can be easily customized, enhanced, or repaired. Moreover, the open source designs enable anyone to take the plans and create his own Hexy.
The best feature of the little hexapod is its affordability. Other “cheap-pretentious” kits would cost you around $ 700. Hexy the Hexapod has an honest-to- goodness cheap price of $ 200. With an unbeatable selling price like this, purchasing Hexy does not only mean you were able to get a good bargain. You can also help in pushing the project to reach a massive $ 200,000 worth of pledges which would fund the development of a drag-and-drop programming GUI based on miniBloq, consequently lowering down the entry barrier.
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