Nils Aldeborgh: Bipedal Robot
Nils is creating a bipedal robot, a machine that he can build and program to walk on two legs. He’s taking a unique approach to robotics by using feigned muscular systems and letting the program build itself, rather than stepper motor joints and a built animation programs. By literally teaching the robot to walk, and using human-based movement architecture, he hopes to achieve better results than standard methods. He sees this as an enormous educational undertaking that will be pushing boundaries on robot technology. He hopes to get a better sense of technology that would prepare him for college as well as get a deeper knowledge of robotics.
How did you choose your project? I chose my project as a basis for a theory I had on creating an artificial intelligence based on accelerated natural selection. I wanted to prove I could program a function to build itself.
Who was your advisor? My advisor was Mr. Connors, whom I talked to a few times about the bipedal architecture.
How much time did your project require? All of it!
What are your plans for after graduation? Did your senior project influence that decision? After graduation I’m doing a 5 year electromechanical engineering program at RIT in Rochester. It helped me realise I liked coding more than I liked building parts in CAD (computer aided-design and drafting), but I didn’t change my major or anything because of it.
What did you like about doing your senior project? I liked having to freedom to chose what to do with my time.
What challenge(s) did you face? There were major problems all along the development process. For example, I had to change microcontrollers because my several thousand lines of code couldn’t actually fit on the device because it was so large.