This robotic crawler was developed during my university years in Tokyo. Its mechanism entirely relies on 3D printing. Gears, suspensions, etc.

Just like my fully mechanical automatas which I am currently building, the goal was to exemplify the potential of 3D printing. Fun fact: Shapeways -a major 3D printing supplier- uses this robot as one of their examples on their robotic homepage. Heck, it’s famous!

The robot uses 10 motors with 3 custom built planetary gearboxes which we developed in the lab with my friend Hiroyoshi. The gearboxes have a very special design which was re-invented by us, Nasa and even some Youtubers. All of us thought we discovered something big…yet it turns out this gearbox design already existed over 100 years ago. : )