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Yet Another Biologically Inspired Six-Legged Running Robot

By Kamal Nayan | Update Date: May 27, 2014 10:11 AM EDT

Through a Kickstarter project, researchers are working to bring a six-legged robot to the masses, that can run as fast as a car.

The robot, dubbed "OutRunner", is less than 2 feet tall and weighs around 3 pounds. Equipping three legs in each side of its motor, the robot emulates a human runner and can reach speeds of 20 mph. It can run on variety of terrain for up to two hours on a single battery charge.

"The whole robotic world is really closed off right now," said lead developer Sebastien Cotton, according to CBS. "If you're not an engineer with a Ph.D., well, you won't be able to play with robots. I want to change that, so I started my company to commercialize robots."

OutRunner has been developed by Robotics Unlimited which stems from the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition. The project, described as "the world's first running remote control robot," had received more than $46,000 from 184 backers so far of a $150,000 goal.

"One of the hardest things with bipedal locomotion is swinging the leg forward," Cotton described the robot. "That's a very complicated motion, so we took a different approach to simplify the mechanics by having the legs spinning."

"We see a lot of uses for this," added Cotton, as quoted by CBS. "First, for people who love to build and take apart things, it's perfect because OutRunner is completely upgradable. It also can be educational because it's very fun for kids to play with and easy to use. We want people to be able to play with real robots without having to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars."

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