Jesus Robots

First we had the most talked about piece of technology in recent years, the Jesus phone. Now we have Jesus robots or more accurately, robots that walk on water.

Carnegie Mellon University has based their robot called STRIDE on an insect called a water strider. This small robot weighs only a few grams and uses surface tension to stay on top of the water. Coating the thin long legs with teflon also helps STRIDE stay afloat. These insect like robots are cheap to make and could be used for environmental monitoring of ponds or marshes.

Link via (Scientific American)

A second robot from Carnegie Mellon is based on a basilik lizard and called a water runner. A basilik lizard stays afloat by slapping and stroking their feet into the water. This robot is mostly represented by the prototype shown here and through the paper linked to here - PDF file.

Link via (Slashdot)

This entry was posted on Friday, July 20th, 2007 at 6:24 am and is filed under Robot News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.