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Disney's VertiGo Combines Car, Helicopter to Drive Up Walls By Evan Ackerman Posted 29 Dec 2015 For robots, multimodal is the way to go, when going involves getting to as many places as you possibly can. Designing a robot with the ability to deal with a variety of terrains or conditions usually requires some creativity, and in the past, some of the most creative designs have come from ETH Zurich and Disney Research, like this wall-climbing base-jumping tornado-powered robot called Paraswift. As cool as Paraswift was, since it depended on suction to climb walls, it couldn't deal with rough surfaces...

Gator Visits Suburb Residents of the Morningside neighborhood in Meadow Pointe found an unexpected visitor Thursday evening. A 6- to 7-foot alligator wandered into the area and tried to climb the wall of a house. By FRED BELLET / TribuneBy GEOFF FOX The Tampa TribunePublished: May 25, 2007WESLEY CHAPEL - A 6- to 7-foot alligator drew a small crowd of incredulous onlookers Thursday evening in the Morningside neighborhood in Meadow Pointe.As the reptile attempted to climb the stucco wall of a house, near several electrical boxes, a woman across the street said, "Oh my God."Pasco County sheriff's Deputy Todd Koenig...

BOSTON — A 23-year-old inventor has come up with a tool to give mere mortals the powers of a superhero: the ability to zoom up a rope as fast as 10 feet per second and scale the side of a building. The battery-powered, handheld gadget is envisioned as a tool for firefighters and soldiers, and helped earn Nate Ball of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology a Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, to be announced Wednesday. While he has practical applications in mind, Ball says it isn't a stretch to compare the tool to the gadgets fictional heroes use to quickly climb to...