skipping and hopping robots

Jason Kottke put up a video from SIGGRAPH Asia 2013 that shows virtual robots evolving effective gaits. Once the model has been designed, the computer flails around (like a human baby flailing around in a bassinet) until it finds a way to make the model walk optimally.



What I found most interesting was the development of a suboptimal “skipping” behavior (right at the 5:00 mark, in “outtakes”), and an optimal hopping gait in models with the kind of leg structures found in kangaroos, potoroos, pademelons and the tammar wallaby.

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