  We present Stanford Pupper, an easily-replicated open source quadruped robot
designed specifically as a benchmark platform for legged robotics research. The
robot features torque-controllable brushless motors with high specific power
that enable testing of impedance and torque-based machine learning and
optimization control approaches. Pupper can be built from the ground up in
under 8 hours for a total cost under $2000, with all components either easily
purchased or 3D printed. To rigorously compare control approaches, we introduce
two benchmarks, Sprint and Scramble with a leader board maintained by Stanford
Student Robotics. These benchmarks test high-speed dynamic locomotion
capability, and robustness to unstructured terrain. We provide a reference
controller with dynamic, omnidirectional gaits that serves as a baseline for
comparison. Reproducibility is demonstrated across multiple institutions with
robots made independently. All material is available at
https://stanfordstudentrobotics.org/quadruped-benchmark.
