I've been playing around with Nybble, trying to diagnose some traction problems, and making plans for trying some new gaits later. To work on gaits, though, I'm thinking I'll need a stand that can support Nybble and let me load up any frame of a pose over serial. ( I'm not sure if there's a command for that already, but easy enough to write if not; the problem is making a stand! ) I could use cardboard, or wood, but then thought maybe I could just bend a coat hanger into shape. I drew up a rough idea of what I thought might work and then started bending a coat-hanger with pliers. I'd bend a bit, hold it next to cat then bend some more. But it started to seem like it wasn't going to work but after bending and bending and bending, I got it to look like this: There wasn't enough wire to complete the far side of the stand, but maybe if I cut it... and then mount it onto a board later? Slowly taking shape. literally "taking shape" :P I don't have a clear picture, but, before nailing the hanger to the board, I wrapped some electrical tape around the top, just to provide a bit of insulation and cushion. First time the little level on my pen came in handy! I've been trying to identify a problem my Nybble's had with skidding, and the first time I ran it on the cradle it was clear... there's a slight stutter with the left rear leg ( aha! I suspect I've been a bit too rough with Nybble :P To be sure it was the servo and not code, I figured I'd swap out one of the head servos for the rear thigh. ( continued ... )

For now I'm trying lots of different "quick tests" with Nybble. Usually a day or so and then on to next thing. ( and then go deeper later once I know more ). The idea here works: swap Nybble's legs around to Bittle configuration, recompile code and try it out. But the results weren't the easy home-run I'd hoped for :o Using left rear foot on right, and right rear foot on left to make Bittle configuration for Nybble. Bittle appears to be a bit smaller and probably lighter ( using 2 fewer servos I think ). So some of the gaits would probably need to be adjusted for Nybble. And, Nybble could also have it's tail servo removed and maybe the head-tilt servo too to make it lighter. But at that point I thought it was more modding and adjusting than I was ready for (there are still a million other things I want to try first... and I want to buckle down and understand all of OpenCat.ino before going too deep on a specific mod). But I thought it'd be worth sharing the results of my one-day test. This will be my starting point if I circle back to this ( and I might, the "inverted legs" seems very popular for quadruped robots ) The first thing was to get Nybble's back legs off and swap them around. And then recompile code with "InstinctBittle.h" instead of "InstinceNybble.h", and calibrate. Here's some clips. The gaits are all "off", and would probably need some tweaking. ( I tried some silly tricks like calibraing the legs at zero, and then attaching the actual fore-legs with a -30 tilt to get it to walk "taller", but there was no "super-easy" tweak to make it ideal. Still, the concept works, and the code runs successfully to let it walk :) If/when I revisit this configuration I know I'll just have to lower the weight a bit more ( maybe? ) and adjust the gaits. Balance is wack, but the motion is there Bittle's Wave on Nybble ( I'll post a few more below... )

I wanted to try some ideas to improve Nybble's traction on my tile kitchen floor, so last night I made some little booties using the fingertips from a wash glove. So chic! But this morning, it snowed here! It rarely snows here ( Hi from Vancouver, Canada!). That made me wonder if I could make a rain-coat for Nybble and try her walking outside. On one hand, I hesitate to post the videos, it was a bit of a crazy risk to try walking Nybble in the snow. It might've hurt the servos, it could've shorted out the Nyboard... blown any of the chips :o But the cuteness factor was too irresistible, I had to try! Quickly converted the rest of the glove into a new rain-coat! Nybble handles the snow pretty good... all she needs is a shovel attachment when it gets deep! The snow stuff was just for fun today; not really the direction I'm going in with Nybble :) (of the several things I want to try next, I'm curious to try swapping the back legs into a "Byttle" style configuration and try running the Byttle version code on Nybble.. well, one of a few things I want to try ) For Snow Day, Nybble was great fun, but now we're back to the kitchen floor with her new boots and where it's dry. The only hazard in here is our real cat.