Self-walking Shoes

This is an instruction for how to make a pair of self walking shoes. As maybe seen for the first time at Trondheim Maker Faire 2015.

And yes, we know there are some easier ways to do this instead of breaking a perfectly working servo. But we got a few servos laying around, so it was the easiest way to start. And it fits perfectly in the shoe :)

Open the drive side of the servo, pull out the cog with the mechanic limiter and use a Dremel or file to remove the little plastic/metal piece, so that the cog could rotate freely 360+ degrees.

Now you need to get the potentiometer to move continuous. So you have to force it to turn around several times.

This is the "destruction part". Open the back side of the servo, locate the wires. Cut all the wires and put aside the pcb. Solder the black/brown and red wires from the servo plug back on to the motor.

Take one pcs of steel wire, and turn it several times around the servo arm. You need to have enough wire left to go through the other shoe. Make the wire point perpendicular from the servo horn.

Roll a piece of cardboard arount the servo and make it sit tightly in the shoe.

Make one hole in the shoe where the servo will be, en a hole on both sides of the other shoe.

- Stick the wire through the first shoe, and place the servoe town where the toes would be.

- Make two 90degrees bends (see pic)

- Stick the rest of the wire through the other shoe, and try to make the shoes as parallel as possible (You might have to adjust the shoe allignment afterwords). Make some kind of end-stop on the wire on the outside of the shoe

Attach a battery to the servo and make it walk :)