A legs-to-wheels robot is a prize winner

The TurboQuad robot, devised by students at the National Taiwan University, uses LabVIEW and a CompactRIO controller to transition from wheeled mode to legged mode depending on the terrain. The robot earned its creators an NI engineering Impact award in the student category. Earlier versions of the TurboQuad had to be sitting still to transition between wheeled and legged modes; this one can do the transition while moving. There are two Maxon motors per axle. One rotates the axle, the other slides the wheel sections back and forth for wheel/legged transitions. The NTU students we talked to at NIWeek say they still have a lot of work to do on the TurboQuad legs.

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