Stanford's Stickybot wall-climbing robot lizard
We thought MIT's slime-climbing robo-snail was pretty, er, slick, but we have to admit that our new fave wall-climber has got to be Stanford's Stickybot. The robot gecko has feet coated with a polymer designed to mimic the properties of setae, the tiny hairs on gecko feet that enable the lizards to climb walls. That allows the bot to clamber freely without the surface in question having to be doused with slime, as required by MIT's bot. Not surprisingly, the Pentagon is already interested in adapting the tech for military use in gloves and boots for soldiers. We can only hope this trickles down to civilian uses fast; we're so ready to connect with our inner Spidey as we climb the walls in our gecko gloves.
[Via I4U]
