Snakes don’t have legs: a physical peculiarity that seems to bother an American YouTuber. This summer, Allen Pan therefore launched a challenge: to make robotic legs for snakes and allow them to walk. And he succeeded.
Allen Pan, 32, lives in Los Angeles and is an engineer by training. Nearly two million people follow him on his Youtube account launched in 2015. He engages in offbeat scientific experiments to learn while having fun, as the saying goes.
Although he is not the only one in this niche, Allen Pan has some more unusual ideas than the others: this fan of manga and the Marvel universe, he has, for example, created Hulk hands capable of breaking bricks, a Thor’s hammer that remains fixed to the ground – except when he grabs it – thanks to his footprints. In theory, no one but Thor can lift the hammer, as you know. He also made a lightsaber capable of cutting objects, Jedi style.
And then, recently, he deceived the vigilance of airport security by transporting a snake in his hand luggage thanks to a subterfuge. He passed it off as a toy. And why embark on such a challenge? Allen Pan talks about it at the start of his video, which has been viewed seven million times: “Actually, snakes have legs! At the embryo stage. But their DNA is broken so the genes that are supposed to grow two legs end up growing some kind of…penis instead (smile). Whenever what other animal has deformed legs, humanity unites to spit in the face of god and they make super cyborg legs for that animal, but no one loves snakes enough to make them robotic legs. . except me !”
How did he do it? The Youtubeur first went to a pet store to observe how a lizard walks. He had planned to rent one – yes, it is possible – but it was too expensive. He therefore analyzed the gait of the lizard to make legs adapted to a reptile. Our engineer hooked these legs – two in front, two behind – to a transparent and rigid plastic tube in which a snake can slip.
Then, it was necessary to find a guinea pig: he contacted a man who breeds hundreds snakes in his garage, who offered him a python that he had to convince to enter the tube. A wary snake positions itself in S so it is impossible to put it in the tube if it does not want to. The python felt the vibrations of the electrical system of the legs: the system had to be turned off for it to finally slip in. And then once inside, Allen got the legs going and the exoskeleton moved two, three meters into this little garage. For the joke, he even added a mini-leash, but the snake ended up getting out of the tube and giving up its legs…