After the debut run of the Spine Robot last fall for the Explosion of Ungovernable Rage show at the Sonoma County Museum, it was observed that the Spine twists itself up during operation. Over the last few months, Mark Pauline has re-engineered it with neat new design features to correct this (see the Spine Robot Progress Log for more details). Yesterday Mark completed the final assembly for the new and improved Spine Robot and tested it manually. Mark says, “Works good! Even with hand power using lever arms, it can be moved around very smoothly and does not wind up like before. The drum winches are cool! Next is to put the high torque hydro motors on it. 800 ft lbs each with no drive ratio reduction.”
Images of the detailed tweaks can be seen in Spine Robot progress log (August 2011 entry)