Spirit Circuit’s PCBs used in the Mantis robot

This designer of the creature – which looks like something out of sci-fi film - is founder of Micromagic Systems, Matt Denton. Matt’s robot is thought to be the biggest, all terrain operational hexpod robot in the world. It is powered by a 2.2 turbo diesel engine and can be piloted from the cockpit or remotely using Wi-Fi. Both Spirit Circuits and Micromagic Systems are Hampshire-based manufacturers. Micromagic has been a customer of Spirit’s for a while, after they began by using Spirit’s free prototyping service, ‘Go Naked.’ Since then Matt has used Spirit’s PCBs in various projects – and his latest one ‘The Mantis’ uses all Spirit Circuit’s PCBs. Steve Driver, Managing Director of Spirit Circuits, said: “I am proud to have been able to assist a new entrepreneur and technology. Matt is clearly an extremely creative and skilled designer and manufacturer and Spirit is thrilled to have helped this ambitious project function and come to life”. Matt Denton said: ‘The Mantis started as an idea back in 2007. We secured private funding in 2009 to start the project and - after three years of design, build and testing - the robot made a first successful test drive in the summer of 2012 at Bestival UK. ‘It's been called an instant design classic and an inspiring engineering project for the next generation,” he added.