Maakrapu (Finnish, Landlubber / Land Crab) is an electric art-vehicle. Originally built for a downhill soapboxcar race, the current iteration is indeed electrically driven with a capstan mechanism to orientate the legs to the direction of travel and individual brakes in the wheels for steering.
Built as a group project at Tampere Hacklab
Build Team: Antti Akkanen, Petri Mantere and Arno Munukka(me)
Wow, came out great and it's a lot faster than I thought it would be! I'd love to hear more details about the mechanism. It looks like the leg mechanism moves by being pushed from behind? It's hard to believe because the motion looks so smooth!
Yes, the legs move just from friction from the ground, one leg touches the ground at a time and move the other legs through the cycle via the crankshaft. The mechanism is known as Klann linkage. Motive force comes from the electric motor connected to the wheels.
Crab-Power!