Recent Comments:
Engadget's relaunch giveaways: a second Nikon S7c WiFi camera {Engadget}
Oct 2nd 2006 3:59PM Oyster Bay harbor, Long Island
Robot Strider walks on water and, eventually, land {Engadget}
Jun 16th 2006 12:30PM There also has been some water strider work done at Columbia.
http://www.columbia.edu/~amh2003/
The subtle but important distinction to make between the CMU, MIT, and Columbia striders v. the Chuo strider is that the first three are supported primarily by surface tension. Having buoyant feet does allow you to support more mass (for electronics, actuators, power, and such), but at the expense of drag, and, not to mention, no longer being a true strider.
Theoretically, you can support quite a bit of weight on the water via surface tension. However, as contact length increases so does drag, so the legs of a robotic or real strider can only be so long before drag takes over and the strider can’t move by its own force. For reference, the largest real water strider weighs up to 1g and has a total leg length of 20cm. The hydrophobic coating on the legs also has alot to do with the weight that can be supported.
CMU has a cool concept for a fully autonomous "true" water strider using piezo actuators. Columbia has demonstrated a passively controlled autonomous solar powered water strider (see above link).
http://www.me.cmu.edu/faculty1/sitti/nano/projects/waterstrider/
