Vorpal The Hexapod V2

NOTE: Under Construction

This page is incomplete and under construction. The contents may change before final release.

Introduction

Vorpal The Hexapod was released in October, 2017 as a successful Kickstarter project. Over the past two years we've made numerous improvements to the software, hardware, and 3D models.

We've learned a lot from talking with our customers, running workshops and directly observing students and instructors use the kit, and continuing our own research.

Now we're getting ready to release Vorpal The Hexapod version 2, which not only makes improvements in just about every area of the project, and also changes the contents of our different kit options to better serve our different customer segments.

Summary of Improvements

• Easier than ever to build: Build time for our Deluxe and Complete kits is cut in half.
• Reverse Battery Protection to reduce the chances of user error frying the electronics.
• Software improvements that increase servo life and add new, interesting movements.

New Features

Here are the biggest new features:

• All kits now come with reverse battery protection. We found that younger children (and occasionally even adults) sometimes inserted the battery backwards, which would instantly fry the electronics, so we now include a protection diode standard in every robot electrical system. We had been holding off doing that because we thought it would decrease battery life, but it turned out that battery life is still nearly two hours even with the protection diode.

• The Deluxe Maker Kit and Deluxe Complete Kit now come standard with a prebuilt electrical system. This cuts nearly an hour off the typical build time and reduces the chances for build errors dramatically. Both the Gamepad and the Hexapod electrical systems are now prewired. The only thing you need to plug in are the servo motors. A wire harness with just a few large connectors replaces the wire-by-wire connection process. NOTE: The Bare Bones kit still requires a wire-by-wire construction technique for those of you who want to build the electrical system from the ground up.

• The Bare Bones kit now comes standard with both an SD Card Reader and an SD Card. Previously, the Bare Bones kit did not include the SD Card function, but we found a lot of our Bare Bones buyers were adding a reader.