The motivation for this work stems from environments where traditional machines are precluded due to size or shape and where appendages such as wheels or legs cause entrapment or failure. Example environments include tight spaces, long narrow interior traverses, and movement over loose materials and terrains. Several applications, including industrial inspection and exploration of hazardous environments, compel serpentine robots. This research develops a general framework for teaching a complex electromechanical robot to become mobile where sequences of body motions alone provide progression. The framework incorporates a learning technique, physical modeling, metrics for evaluation, and the transfer of results to a snake-like mobile robot. The mechanism and control of a 20 degree of freedom snake robot is described and multiple gaits are demonstrated including novel non-biological gaits. This research furthers the design and control of limbless robots.