Apparently, robot designers are worried that they're not creating automatons that are creepy enough, because a team of engineers at Virgina Tech have put something together that will give even the toughest of men chills. The robot in question is the three-legged STriDER (Self-excited Tripedal Dynamic Experimental Robot, not to be confused with CMU's Strider) which balances itself on two legs and then flips its body 180-degrees, bringing its third leg forward with the motion. According to project leader Dennis Hong, "STriDER's gait is closer to that of a human walking than most bipedal humanoid robots you see today," adding, "This is how we humans walk, we do not actively control our knees, we just let them swing." It does seem to be true, as the robot has an eerily life-like quality to its movements. Don't believe us? Take a look at the video after the break and see the tripod in action.

Throwing its fins into the proverbial pool with various water-bourne robots such as the Strider, the CMU Water Runner, and whatever this creep is called, is the new STRIDE -- soon to be the aforementioned Strider's enemy number one. The name stands for Surface Tension Robotic Insect Dynamic Explorer, and the minuscule bot works by mimicking the strider insect and skirting along the surface of the water using hydrophobic wire legs coated in Teflon. Researchers discovered that the 1-gram bot could carry a 9.3-gram payload without breaking the surface by utilizing a sculling motion for movement. The robot is 10-15 times slower than the actual insect and 10 times larger, but the engineers hope to lower the bot's size and increase its speed by downsizing its build, along with expanding its capabilities by harnessing technologies such as sensors, wireless communication, and autonomous control.

Although we've seen failed attempts at turning amoebas into helpers, Virginia Tech's Dennis Hong is hoping that his creations will see a bit more success. Using funding from the prestigious CAREER grant, the researcher is designing a Whole Skin Locomotion (WSL) mechanism "for robots to work on much the same principle as the pseudopod, or cytoplasmic foot, of the amoeba." The device's primary goal seems to hover around the world of search-and-rescue, as the diminutive crawler can maneuver in and around tight spaces without regard for its own health, and of course, a nearly-microscopic bot just can't be developed without hinting at one day ending up somewhere inside your body. Notably, it appears that Mr. Hong isn't satisfied with just building a prototype, as he's already got plans for implementing the technology into projects such as IMPASS (Intelligent Mobility Platform with Active Spoke System, DARwin (Dynamic Anthropomorphic Robot with Intelligence), and STriDER (Self-Excited Tripedal Dynamic Experimental Robot).

[Via MedGadget]

We know you're still reeling from the awesomeness that is the robotic panda and other more aquatically-inclined robots we've seen in the past, but the Strider is actually as useful as it is impressive. From what we gather from a trail of liberally translated links is that this radio-controlled bot, which is being developed at Japan's Chuo University, uses 6 legs to propel itself across the water like the ones MIT and Carnegie Mellon have been developing for a while. The outer legs are made of buoyant resin to keep it afloat, while the middle legs provide the driving force. Eventually the developers are hoping it will be able to move flawlessly from the water onto land, making it a valuable tool for aquatic rescues, especially when equipped with a camera. Even if it never gets that far, the videos on the source link suggest it would make a pretty killer pool toy.

[Via Robot Watch]