The "Eight-Legged Walker" is displayed in the lobby of the Engineering building, Monday afternoon.

Walker is engineering feat

By: Stephanie Vallejo

Posted: 5/13/09

An eight-legged metal and wood beast briskly walked down an Engineering building hallway, while being ridden by a student.

Five students from the engineering department spent a year creating this eight-legged mobile machine as their senior design project.

"We wanted to make a machine that was a little bit different, something that was able to navigate off terrain without having some of the disadvantages of a wheel, but has all the advantages of a leg," said Daniel Wiseman, a senior mechanical engineering major and the project's team leader.

Wiseman said he came up with the idea about a year ago. The team wanted to build something similar to a rescue vehicle, exploration vehicle or a vehicle to explore other planets, he said.

"We spent last semester dealing with all of the design work, the computer models and designing the mechanism," Wiseman said. "This semester has just been fabrication and construction."

The 350-pound "Eight-legged Walker," as the team calls it, is piloted by a joystick next to the wooden chair centered in the middle of the steel.

Wiseman said it is strong enough to carry someone up to 200 pounds.

"It is earth-friendly," he said. "Everything on the machine is recyclable and it's zero emissions, of course, because it's all electric."

Oscar Joya, a senior mechanical engineering major, said he helped with the project from beginning to end.

"A lot of people underestimated that this could be done," he said. "That served as a motivation for us to work hard."

The raw materials for the eight-legged walker were costly, Joya said, but the team secured a sponsor called Ecopeds, a company that makes electrically assisted scooters and bicycles.

Daniel Aldama, a senior mechanical engineering major, was the welder for the project.

"The best part is driving it," he said. "It kind of feels like being on a horse."

The machine's battery power isn't at its full capacity today, Wiseman said, but it has the potential to walk about a mile, at five to six mph.

"We designed it to be just a brisk walk," said Salvador Alvarez, a senior mechanical engineering major. "We didn't want to make it that fast because of the materials we were using."

Alvarez said he was in charge of purchasing all the raw materials using the team's strict budget, and is happy with the final result.

"It's like our little baby," he said. "It's weird to look at and think, whoa, we made that."

The team posted their first test of the eight-legged walker on YouTube titled, "IT LIVES," Alvarez said.

"There are definitely some things that we've learned building it that we would change if we were to do it again, but we're calling it an absolute success," Wiseman said.

"We were really happy when it worked," said Hector Polvo, a senior mechanical engineering major and team member. "We went crazy."

Spectators who pass by the eight-legged walker, displayed in the Engineering building's lobby, will see wide-angled feet on the machine, Wiseman said.

"Those are all interchangeable," he said. "We designed different types of feet for different terrain. We have a spiked-shaped foot for a marshy, soft, wet terrain. There's a flat foot that would be good for sand."

The team said the best part of the whole process was seeing all their hard work become a huge success.

"We developed a big bond and found out how big industries come together and work as a team to accomplish goals and get their tasks done," Joya said. "Every group member in our team is ready to go out there in the industry, and that's what really counts."