MH - 2

About The MH2 Walking Robot

The MH2 hexapod robot is designed around a simple mechanical leg design with all metal brackets. This leg design minimizes the number of parts required to make a two DOF (degree of freedom) leg and allows this robot to be steered like a tank. Forward, reverse and in place turning is supported. The robot uses standard sized Hitec servos for the legs. The combo kit includes everything you need to make a functional robot except batteries and optional PS2 controller.

The Mechanics
The body of the robot is made from ultra-tough laser-cut PVC structural components while the legs are made from high-quality aluminum Servo Erector Set brackets. The MH2 includes 12 servos; six HS-422 and 6x 645MG. The robot is able to adjust its height, walk forward and in reverse, as well as rotate clockwise and counter-clockwise, tit forward and backward, left and right and more.

Controlling the Robot
There are three control options for the MH2. The first combo kit, the MH2, comes with the SSC-32 and the Bot Board II + BASIC Atom Pro 28. This kit is programmed using Basic Micro Studio. The second kit, the MH2U, includes the SSC-32 and a BotBoarduino, and is intended to be programmed using the popular Arduino software. By offloading the servo pulse generation and sequence movement timing to the SSC-32, the microcontroller has plenty of power to do some really cool things. The sample code allows the robot to walk using the PS2 controller (sold separately).

The third kit includes a full version of Flow Botics Studio and includes the SSC-32 as well as a serial to Bluetooth board and Bluetooth module which allows for remote control from the computer. This approach offloads the higher level calculations to the computer. FlowBotics Studio includes a demo project for the MH2 with pre-written walking algorithms.

You never have to be alone again. At least, that's the thinking behind the Japanese shoulder robot.
Created by Yuichi Tsumaki, Fumiaki Ono and Taisuke Tsukuda from Yamagata University in Japan, the MH-2 robot miniature humanoid perches on the shoulder like a bird and enables users to share experiences with friends and family who cannot be present in person.

No details have been given of the robots being outfitted in angel or devil costumes.
The MH-2 robot was recently introduced at the 2012 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. The device falls under the category of telepresence, a type of tech that enables users to feel as if they are actually present in real life.

The robot is designed to be able to mimic human mannerisms and actions in order to make the connection between the real-life user and and digitally connected friend as realistic as possible.

The at-home friend should use a 360 degree immersive reality display in order to see through the robot's eyes. A Kinect like device is necessary for the at home user to instruct the robot's movements.

The robot has 20 degrees of freedom, or rotation, throughout its form to simulate human actions and movements. Seven degrees of freedom are contained within the robot's arms the same amount as a human arm. The gadget has enough movement ability that it can even simulate breathing.

However, all that movement comes at a price. The gadget requires a bulky backpack in order to store the servomechanisms and motors necessary to send instructions to the robot's head, arms and body. Powered by 22 actuators, or motors, joint movements and rotations are controlled by the tug of a wire.

With its human-like movement ability, the MH-2 follows recent developments in the automation industry that are trending toward creating more lifelike robots. The ECCEROBOT, short for Embodied Cognition in a Compliantly Engineered Robot, is the world's first 'anthropomimetic' robot, meaning the robot copies inner human mechanism, rather than simply mimicking outward actions.

The ECCEROBOT may lead the pack of creepy robots, but the Japanese shoulder robot MH-2 is the only one you can cart around with you on your shoulder.

The MH-2 is a telepresence robot like no other we have seen, and believe us, we’ve seen our share of weird robots. This tiny humanoid figure is always there for you, perching on your shoulder, ready to be remotely inhabited by your friends. Conceived by the researchers at Yamagata University in Japan, MH-2 is designed to imitate human behavior accurately enough for you to feel like your friend is actually there with you.

The truth, however, is that this friend of yours is back at home, in the living room, making wild gestures in front of some sort of a motion capture set-up and watching the video captured in real time by the MH-2. Meanwhile, the robot is busy copying all these movements, flailing its limbs around and acting as a physical beacon of your friend’s engagement in the situation. The robot's expressive capabilities are impressive, with the arms having seven degrees of freedom (DoF), while the head has three DoF, and the body has two, plus one more dedicated to imitating breathing movements.

Although both the friend and the robot are guaranteed quite a workout, it’s you who needs to do most of the heavy lifting. To make sure your Miniature Humanoid’s movements are smooth, as many as 22 bulky actuators are required. You need to carry the servomotors in your backpack so that they can pull the strings attached to the robot's joints, causing it to move.

The researchers are already at work trying to make the whole package a little smaller and more convenient, but obviously the MH-2 has never been about convenience in the first place. It’s not a production prototype. It's a bold experiment in human-robot relations.

Powering Options
The robot is compatible with the following batteries and chargers.
  Chargers
    > NiCad & Ni-MH Universal Smart Charger (USC-01)
  Batteries
    > 6.0 Volt Ni-MH 1600mAh Battery Pack (BAT-03)
    > 6.0 Volt Ni-MH 2800mAh Battery Pack (BAT-05)

Important!
To keep costs down we are not providing printed Assembly Guides. They are provided online, so you will need to print them when you order the kits. By providing the Assembly Guides online we can provide more detailed and up to date information than the old hardcopy method allowed.