Snake robots are also being developed for search and rescue purposes at Carnegie Mellon University's Biorobotics Lab. [ citation needed] See also [ edit ] Prepare the xbee breakout board (solder on the 2 rows of male headers and 2 rows of 2mm xbee female headers)

Researchers studied how the variable kingsnake – commonly found in deserts and pine-oak forests – climbed steps in Li’s terradynamics lab. “These snakes have to regularly travel across boulders and fallen trees – they’re the masters of movement and there’s much we can learn from them,” he said. Snakebots are used in situations where their characteristics give them an advantage over their environment. These environments tend to be long and thin like pipes or highly cluttered like rubble. Thus, Snakebots are currently being developed to assist search and rescue teams. When a task requires several different obstacles to be overcome, the locomotive flexibility of SnakeBots potentially offers an advantage. [4]Attach wire into the Channel A and Channel B slots on the motor shield and attach the ends of the motors. You do not have to solder these yet, it will be easier if they are just twisted around the positive and negative tabs for easy removal in future steps. The vibration motor will need to be as long as the snake itself so it will be able to rattle the tail. Scientists noticed the wriggling portions provided stability to keep the snake from tipping over. As more of the snake reached the step, its front body section would get longer and its rear section would get shorter while the middle body section remained roughly the same length, suspended vertically above the two steps. To get started, we used low-voltage motors with tape on the end of each axle to test whether our code was working or not. In the beginning, it is more important to get a prototype working, which can be expanded upon to get a final product. The motors we used in this step were not the final motors we used, but they worked the same and allowed us to work on the project until we could find motors that were better suited for our needs.

When we replaces the wiring, we just twisted the end of the electrical piece and the wire together to connect the circuit. If you can, we recommend soldering these pieces together, it will create a stronger bond and be less likely to break. We needed to return some of our materials to the classroom, so we twisted the wiring together and wrapped each end in electrical tape to hold the bond together. So if you have the servo shield, solder on the screw terminal; two rows of headers where the 6V and GND from the battery are connected. Solder on male headers so it will mount in your seeeduino (or arduino) mega. I'm using the seeeduino again because i had it around, and because it is smaller so it fits better into the skin tube (the protective outer layer). When setting up the project in previous steps, everything was attached pretty closely to the breadboard. If we want out snake to be the full length of the base, we will need to create wire extensions for various portions of the electrical.

The vibration motor is added to simulate the a rattling tail on a snake. We were given our vibration motor from class, so we do not have a model number, but just like the other steps of this project, use the size motor that best fits the snake that you are building. We wanted the smallest motor possible, so that it would be able to fit on the small tail piece we were building.