Dr. Henry Astly is a Biomimicry researcher from the University of Akron who uses robotics as a hyper-realistic model to test biomimicry designs. After reading all of his papers I invited him to the show to talk about what he was doing and why he chooses to use a robotic model to test his work. In all one of my favorite guests to talk to his wealth of information in conjunction with his passion for the topic made him a delight to talk to.
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Fascinating talk about the challenges at the interfaces of mechanical and natural systems!
Thank you very much! That interview with professor Astley is one of my favorite I did a deep dive reading all of the papers that he had released in the last two years and really appreciated the information that he has contributed.
There was one interesting bit of information that I got (if I heard and interpreted correctly) from Dr. Astley was that in order to make the snake robot go “limp” at wanted times, he went back to use the AX series (AX-18). I guess that was to set the servo’s PUNCH setting (Address 30 & 31 in its Control Table) to a minimal value possible? Because from my user experience, the newer XL series like the XL-430 is very “stiff” even when no power is applied to it. It is interesting to see that “old” technology can get a “new” usage. 