Hi,
I'm very new here. Jeffry Fontaine showed me this site the other day and I thought I would share a thing or two.
I am an industrial designer in the theatre industry, but also make toys and miniatures, as well as the odd private commission. I am a dead keen 3D modeler and 3D printer with 2 machines at home. I have a pretty crappy online presence, and almost never upload anything to anywhere, so forgive me for any internet faux pas, periods of silence, or not understanding acronyms.
Anyway, I have had an idea in my head for some time about a hydraulic powered walker that I would like to make, and it was only after seeing this site that I decided to start creating something physical. I imagine it would be designed to walk around in swamps, so would be spider like, with the capsule able to be lowered into the water. Rusty, dirty, old, Victorian era iron work maybe, but probably not steam powered... kind of a walking submersable
I had taken many photos around the place of hydraulic machinery, and started sketching a mash up of bits. I then drew it up on the computer and roughed out the movement arcs and overall sizes and proportions. I then made a basic block model in Solidworks. I decided that the whole thing looked too heavy for something that was meant to be walking around in a swamp, so made the arm segments into riveted trusses.
I don't really know what I am going to do for feet, instead of getting too bogged down in details, I just went ahead and started making them... Also, once the legs are made, the size and shape of the pilot capsule should be easier to determine.