Stiquito the Robot

The invention of Stiquito, a six-legged, inexpensive, autonomous robot by Dr. Jonathan Mills has had an astounding impact on the teaching of robotics as well as on amateur robot-building.  About 30,000 kits for building Stiquito have been sold, making it one of the most popular amateur robots.  Stiquito literally means "little Sticky" after its predecessor, Sticky.  Dr. Mills had performed extensive research on analog logic but he needed to test his ideas on a robotic platform.  He wanted a robot that was inexpensive, so that many could be built and tested, but, in the 90's, most robots were quite expensive.  He then attempted to build one himself, using nitinol from Dynalloy, Inc. to form legs from a material that would act like muscle, and used music wire from K&S Engineering to keep the legs taut.  He then designed an embedded device that would be used to control and move the robot.  After many prototypes, he designed Sticky, a larger robot that was a hexapod, like Stiquito.  Sticky wasn't very cost-effective, but a later prototype, named Stiquito, was rather cost-effective.  Those who are interested in building Stiquito and writing programs to control him are recommended to build from a kit.  A rather good one is Stiquito Controlled! with a guide by James M. Conrad.  Stiquito Controlled! is the model in the picture.  It is published by Wiley and Sons and by the IEEE Computer Society.  You can purchase a Stiquito Controlled!  at this link here.  (It isn't an affiliate link, if you wanted to know.)  Stiquito is easy and fun to program and use.