Trojan Cockroach, ca. 1980-1984

The Trojan Cockroach, also called the Walking Robot, was a project overseen by Ivan Sutherland during a brief professional tenure at Carnegie Mellon in the early 1980s. Although Sutherland is more well-known for his innovations in computer graphics, he was also interested in robotics and began working with Marc Raibert, the head of the Leg Lab at CMU and later MIT. Sutherland, as part of his company Sutherland, Sproulll, and Associates, worked with CMU students to develop a six-legged walking machine, which the students then dubbed the “Trojan Cockroach.” Research into the walking machine was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The machine had no internal balance system, resulting in the need for six legs to steady it as it moved. After its completion, it was dismantled. The objects in this subseries are likely the only remnants of the project besides photographic and video documentation.