Here’s a neat design by Nils Volker for a spherical rolling robot. The robot propels itself forward by turning about its axis, and can change the direction of motion by dynamically changing the axis of rotation. This seems to be a more efficient design than having a suspended pendulum which causes the sphereical robot to curve to one side or the other – a common design among other “ball” robots. Nils robot uses LEGO Mindstorms for electronics/mechanics and is remotely controlled via a bluetooth connection.

Nice work Nils!

More pictures/video after the jump.

[Via Robots Dreams]

Spherical Robot 01 from Nils Völker on Vimeo.