Vorpal the Hexapod and Max the Megapod

Steve Pendergrast
Steve Pendergrast is a former Bell Labs Distinguished Software Engineer, Entrepreneur, and author.
http://vorpalrobotics.com
Gaige Moore
Gaige Moore helped develop an early version of Vorpal the Hexapod while a senior in high school. She's now a junior at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute studying Management and Industrial Engineering.
http://vorpalrobotics.comMore Event Info
More Project Info
http://vorpalrobotics.com
What inspired you to make this project?
This project was developed by a high school student (Gaige Moore) and I was her advisor. It was an independent study project on walking robots. We started by developing an easy to build 3d printed hexapod and initially planned to continue on to other types of walking robot. However, the hexapod prototype got so much attention from people who saw it that we decided to concentrate the whole year on the hexapod, refining it and making it easier to build. That was my final year teaching high school. I decided to take the hexapod project and refine it, add more sophisticated software, and launch it as an open source project on kickstarter. Since then, we've sold thousands of kits with electronics for this project, and many other people have built it by sourcing the parts themselves as well. Many schools use this project for classes, summer STEM camps, etc.