the History of spido

During my school years, I decided I would one day create a robot spider that was as much like a tarantula as possible in the way it looked and sporadically moved. 

I developed an ingenious walking mechanism and a complex digital control.  The latter had a random element and a sensor system for acknowledging obstacles.  The spider only had two motors for walking and three others to move the feelers and abdomen.

I used this knowledge in 2004 to create a miniature robot spider. 

Its body had a diameter of only 5 cm, while it was equipped with simplified efficient kinematics and an alterable analog control unit with 6 sensors. [Video]

Almost 20 years after building the first robot spider, I was able to construct this soldering kit, which was made of printed circuit boards and brass tubes. 

Its left and right groups of legs are synchronized using a magnetic coupling. By way of numerous sockets on its experimentation platform it's possible to “program” multiple behavioral patterns. [Video]