Winston – The overview

Winston started off as a fun way to learn arduino and robotic programming after witnessing Spot of Boston Dynamics. While the first iterations held true to this ideology, it became more serious in 2023 when Winston became my major project, and an item to be presented at PyConAU that same year. There was a lot of work to do. Because of this, I enlisted the help of Morgan Potter and Joshua Kisnorbo to ease the workload.
The end goal for Winston was to be an autonomous walking quadruped, which made use of inverse kinematics for its movement, as well as using computer vision to assist its navigation. All this would require wireless communication, and as such, Winston’s name found meaning:

Walking Inverse-kinematics-based Navigation System Transmitted Over Networks
So, was this achieved? This page follows the journey of Winston, so you can see where we’re up to!

Winston – Version 1

The first iteration of Winston was thrown together with not enough time. This isn’t because the timeframe to complete this task was too short, but rather because I procrastinate. The body was 3D-printed, with legs that were solid sticks (that were not secured). I also forgot to print with support which caused half the face to melt off. This rendition of Winston required the use of an Arduino Uno, a breadboard, an ultrasonic detector, 4x 9g servo motors, a button, and a lot of wires. There was meant to be a battery slot in the design, however, one again due to being new at design and modelling, it was too tight of a fit in actuality. The 3D model and circuit design are below.

After this, the design was printed, and components gathered and assembled. After the hardship of realising my print was bad but having too little time to fix it, I needed to write some code to make this work. Once again, I was new to this and had little time, and although I had completed all the starter kit challenges, this was my first Arduino program done entirely by myself. Given that, the walking cycle is pretty bad, but surprisingly effective. The code and photo if this iteration are below.