Meet Wheggo, our first prototype!

We made a prototype wheg (wheel = leg) robot, based on a design by Brainergiser. The robot can conquer surprisingly difficult terrain, especially considering it’s mostly made of cardboard and hot glue! There’s no control system – it’s just two motors and a battery on a cardboard frame with loosely coupled cardboard whegs and some hot glue pads for traction.

Wheggo makes incredible patterns on the sand dunes, simply due to the interaction of the sand, robot, and gravity. The robot tends to go downhill – when started in the uphill direction it will eventually not be able to climb higher and will naturally turn downhill due to gravity and the lack of traction. Quite satisfying!