Inventor Mike Denton – an engineer who specialises in animatronics for the film industry – says he was inspired by science fiction movies to create the machine, which has taken four years and “hundreds of thousands of pounds” to perfect.
So far the “hexapod” has has one formal outing at a music festival, and he says a mining company and a marine research organisation are interested in the design.
But Mr Denton admits the six-legged design is slow – it has a top speed of 1.5 kilometres an hour and can travel about five kilometres on a 20-litre tank of diesel.
“It wasn’t built to be efficient and fast. It was built to look cool and insect-like and fun,” he said.