Uh-Oh: Robotic Starfish Can Squeeze Under Doors
This is a video of a robotic starfish developed by scientits (not changing it) at Harvard. It's powered by pneumatics and can squeeze under a door, crawl up the a leg of a bed, and be hugging your face before you finally wake from that dream where all your teeth fall out and you show up for a job interview dressed as a lady. *eyeing own fake taytays* I'm a shoo-in for this position.
In the research paper, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team describes how the robot crawled under a glass barrier just two centimetres high. This gives the robot an edge over robots that mimic real skeletons, and has potential applications in dangerous search and rescue missions.
*Eye barrel-roll* Search and rescue missions, riiiiiiiiiiiight. Did I mention it can only move at 13-meters (~42-feet) an hour? Because that sounds like a pretty slow search. Heavy on the search, light on the rescue. Besides, it's a f***ing starfish. Starfish don't rescue people. This isn't The Little Mermaid, people.
Hit the jump for the cut off its arms and see if they grow back! in action.
Soft-bodied pneumatic robot crawls like a starfish [wired]
Thanks to MR SQUIBB, Lord Tarl, Mike from Jersey, TimeStreamer, Boomsling, phzik and Disposablesteve, all of whose parents are excellent namers.
