First climbing shape
One of the first times the idea sat on a desk as a machine: how a tree-climbing robot could look. Designed, 3D-printed, assembled, and wired at DLAB. Reduced mobility. You improve what you can see.
A retired proof of concept, 30 May 2024, at Demonstrator Lab Amsterdam. It does not climb a tree. The point was to have a shape, firmware, and printed parts in the same place so the next build had something to react to.
Why print it first
Drawings stay abstract. Once a chassis is on the bench, the problems are physical: which joint actually moves, how the wires sit, what the printed material does under a servo. That is why this exists.
The materials were already the ones we still care about: bioplastics for the body, a bit of soft robotics in how the limbs are thought, and control firmware on a breadboard so the joints do something. Hobby servos. Nothing sealed. Reduced mobility — a shape on a desk, not a machine on a tree.
Eleven days later we asked a narrower question with a PLA gripper on a trunk. Then a trunk climber that still cannot switch onto branches. Later still, Gibbon Bot. This clip is earlier: the first climbing silhouette in the lab.
On the desk
Phone clip at DLAB, 30 May 2024. Printed body, servo limbs, jumper wires to a breadboard. Spare printed parts on the same desk. That is the whole story.
Work with us
Printed mechanics, firmware for cheap servos: firmware and CAD. Email services@olivabot.com.