The Carpentopod, An Amazing Walking Coffee Table

Dutch game designer Giliam de Carpentier built the Carpentopod, an amazing walking coffee table. Combining his engineering skills with his carpentry skills, de Carpentier was able to make this amazing machine walk evenly using custom software he had written in 2008.

Back in 2008, I wrote some software for fun to generate various optimized walking mechanisms. And when I also picked up some electronics and wood working skills in more recent years, I was able to turn one of these mechanisms into an actual wireless walking wooden coffee table: the Carpentopod.

While table’s movement is quite different, de Carpentier took a bit of inspiration from Theo Jansen’s Strandbeest.

Anyone who’s ever seen one of Theo Jansen’s inspiring Strandbeest sculptures will probably see the similarity between his leg linkage and the Carpentopod linkage. The Carpentopod linkage, however, has a very different set of component ratios, as well as an extra joint point and an evolved rounded toe diameter.