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Students Spider Bot Learns and Crawls, Much to Intel's Delight

by Caleb Johnson on February 10, 2010 at 05:00 PM

When University of Arizona student Matt Bunting was assigned a class project to build a robot, he naturally wanted to do it on the cheap. To complete the assignment, Bunting (a lifelong robot enthusiast) used spare parts from previous creations to build a spider-like bot. But the resulting "Frankenstein" garnered the student more than just an A in his engineering class.

According to Fox News, major companies offered Bunting both parts and assistance after seeing a video of his creation on YouTube. First, let us say that the robot itself is impressive work for a college student. What truly sets the hexapod apart from the A.I. crowd is its ability to teach itself to walk each time it's activated. To do so, the robot takes a series of pictures with a basic webcam as it attempts to walk. Then, it analyzes each image and determines which movements best suit the act of walking.

After watching an online video, Stewart Christie, a product-marketing engineer at Intel, noticed that Bunting's bot used the company's Atom Processor. Seeing the chance to help out a kid while marketing Intel, Christie offered the student some brand spanking new hardware to build two more spider bots in exchange for nothing more than publicity. From there, a robotics company called Crust Crawler also noticed Bunting's work, offering him yet more hardware and exposure in exchange for writing some operation codes.

Bunting (along with his bot) is headed to graduate school now, but it looks like he might have already secured a few post-graduation job connections. Who knew that a few spare mechanical parts and a YouTube video could take a guy so far? [From: Fox News]

Tags: engineering, intel, robot, spider, top, walking, webcam, youtube

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