This TrotBot was created by Ben Vagle. It is an 8-legged robot built out of LEGO Mindstorms and despite its looks, it uses a walking mechanism inspired by the gait of a galloping horse.
You can see it in action in the videos below. It is fun to watch and it really gets around on a variety of surfaces, uphill, downhill and over obstacles. Even though it has eight legs you can clearly see the equine inspiration in its walk.
It even makes a horse-like clip-clop sound in this clip (clop):
Given its all-terrain agility, I think we can expect to see more robots using this unusual walking gait. Ben goes into more detail about the build process on his website and over at Make.
[via Laughing Squid]
