OutRunner: The World's First RC Running Robot

[Zbig]

I would agree that they're being pretty pompous, but isn't that standard for a Kickstarter project?

Dunno. I know it made my brain hurt, though.

EDIT:
I've just re-watched markhen's / Innavatus's tiq probe kickstarter video. It proves you can summarize your idea in a balanced, no-nonsense, factual, if somewhat less flashy way while still being confident in your product.

[PointyOintment]

In the living world there are no bodies with bearing-attached rotating protuberances. All creatures must - using parts of their bodies to push the rest of their body forward - eventually 'recollect' the movement-generating parts.

Wikipedia:

Motor. The bacterial flagellum is driven by a rotary engine (the Mot complex) made up of protein, located at the flagellum's anchor point on the inner cell membrane. … The rotor transports protons across the membrane, and is turned in the process. The rotor alone can operate at 6,000 to 17,000 rpm, but with the flagellar filament attached usually only reaches 200 to 1000 rpm. The direction of rotation can be switched almost instantaneously, caused by a slight change in the position of a protein, FliG, in the rotor.

The rotational speed of flagella varies in response to the intensity of the proton motive force, thereby permitting certain forms of speed control, and also permitting some types of bacteria to attain remarkable speeds in proportion to their size; some achieve roughly 60 cell lengths / second.

[miguelvp]

Wikipedia

And most of us have plenty of those to spare 

[quantumvolt]

In the living world there are no bodies with bearing-attached rotating protuberances. All creatures must - using parts of their bodies to push the rest of their body forward - eventually 'recollect' the movement-generating parts.

Wikipedia:

Motor. The bacterial flagellum is driven by a rotary engine (the Mot complex) made up of protein, located at the flagellum's anchor point on the inner cell membrane. … The rotor transports protons across the membrane, and is turned in the process. The rotor alone can operate at 6,000 to 17,000 rpm, but with the flagellar filament attached usually only reaches 200 to 1000 rpm. The direction of rotation can be switched almost instantaneously, caused by a slight change in the position of a protein, FliG, in the rotor.

The rotational speed of flagella varies in response to the intensity of the proton motive force, thereby permitting certain forms of speed control, and also permitting some types of bacteria to attain remarkable speeds in proportion to their size; some achieve roughly 60 cell lengths / second.

According to http://cronodon.com/BioTech/Bacteria_motility.html it is a bushing-attached device    ("The L and P rings act as a bushing"). If so, it does not seem to be bearing-attached.

Anything else pedantic you wanna add ?

[AndyC_772]

I don't think it's that terrible of an idea, mechanically pp. It takes a lot less weight than a full size wheel of that same diameter and probably does better on rocky terrain (if the rods don't slip).

The limiting case of this design would appear to be a spoked wheel fitted with a pneumatic tyre.

If each leg were actively controlled, in order to govern and limit its rate of extension and the forces involved, then I might see some value in the project. Active suspension is an area worthy of research, and something interesting and worthwhile might come out of it. It might also be reasonable justification for doing away with a tried-and-tested sprung element that has fixed compressibility - ie. the tyre.

[corrado33]

My first thought was "What's the difference between this and a wheel with very few spokes?"

I can't consider this a "running" robot. As someone mentioned above, if they simply put wheels with 3-4 spokes on a normal RC car it could "run" faster.

I'm sure this was hard to build, but it'd probably be a heck of a lot more efficient if you simply put lightweight wheels on it.