Posted on 03/17/2016 9:58:42 AM PDT by BenLurkin
The robots are called microTugs and they’re the creations of scientists at Stanford University’s Biomimetics and Dexterous Manipulation Laboratory who have been working for some time on tiny-yet-strong robots. In 2015, they unveiled one weighing less than half an ounce that can pull up to 52 pounds. Another one weighing 9 grams uses its super-strength plus gecko-like sticky feet to pull a 2-pound object up a wall.
...
The microTugs use the adhesive foot-power of the gecko robots, whose feet have minute rubber spikes that grip firmly by bending when pressure is applied, thus increasing their surface area and stickiness. When the robot lifts a foot, the pressure is released and the spikes straighten out, ready for the next step.
The researchers observed that ants on a team get greater cooperative strength by using three of their six legs simultaneously. Combining those two ideas, they built the tiny (less than an ounce each) microTugs and demonstrated their team effort by pulling Christensen’s 3,900-pound vehicle.
(Excerpt) Read more at mysteriousuniverse.org ...
sooo they could maybe pull my finger?
Where is the video of them pulling that massive weight up an incline greater than zero.......hype
I suspect this says more about the bearings on the car than the robot.
I remember reading the N&W Class J locomotives had such good bearings two men could push them on level track. They weighed 494,000 lb.
Video is at the site (near the end of it).
Looks like they are moving that car.
Is it up an incline?
That's pretty impressive..
I seem to remember something from college about static friction vs. rolling friction on a level plane.
Where is the video of them pulling that massive weight up an incline greater than zero.......hype
Well, you got one weighing about 1/3 ounce pulling something almost 100 times heavier straight up a wall.
Doesn’t that count?
90 degrees? If so and the weight was on the same plane as the puller, then it would be impressive
I’m having visions of gravity overpowering the tiny robots with the car rolling down a hill out of control through lanes of traffic and crashing into something either ridiculously expensive or embarrassing.
The 9g climbing robot can carry over a kilogram vertically up glass. This is equivalent to a human climbing up a skyscraper while carrying an elephant.
So I can assume you didn’t go to the article and see the picture and read the description? LOL
It’s in there. A 9 gram microbot pulling 2 pounds straight up a wall.
Watch the video.
Incredibly cool technology, and all you can do is mumble “hype”.
Don’t you have some kids to shoo off your lawn?
The rolling resistance of rubber tires is somewhere between 8 and 100 times greater than the rolling resistance of steel wheels. It’s equivalent of at least a 2% grade. This is more than hype.
I’m guessing a beer can as very little rolling resistance. Probably only take one of these guys to roll it from the fridge to the TV room. And the fridge has WIFI to automatically order more when the beer runs low!
“This is equivalent to a human climbing up a skyscraper while carrying an elephant.”
Wow.
In the video, 100 grams of robots were able to roll a car which weighed 1,800 kilograms (1 to 18,000 ratio), albeit slowly.
At the same time that robots are evolving a general purpose human-like set of capabilities, super abilities like this are also developing.
Productivity and quality will skyrocket across the board as robots begin taking over functions from humans. Costs will plummet for most things. Standards of living should skyrocket.
We are so screwed.
Why keep us around?
Get off my lawn whippersnapper. :0)
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