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Gecko Feet and Antigravity
A number of people have e-mailed about the
gecko page. It's a pretty interested article about a project to construct wall-climbing robots, and the science involved.
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Maybe Van der Walls forces allowed Jesus to walk on water? That would mean that he wasn't necessarily devine, but he just had millions of tiny hairs on his feet! I guess the only way we could find out was to put Jesus in a vacumn and see if he could still walk on water.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Since the robot is copying nature does it get a new term besides "innovative?"
of course
can anyone else menatally hear that tiny tiny ripping noise when they pull their feet off of the wall :-)
I guess that would make more sense than a robot running an html rendering engine...
:-)
Incidentally, Hemos, it's "interesting"
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
This is waaaaay more true than you might realize. Almost every angle that we understand about metabolism in living things (and there's tons we don't know) has a potential application to the manufacture or pefection of human artifacts.
I could go on and on, but I'll point out one of my favorites: your computer probably has a honking big and noisy fan on it to dissipate heat. Not so for most animals and plants. Part of it is low wattage parts, part of it is beautiful heat distribution and exhaust apparatus, and part of it...well, we don't know yet.
Babar
But as far as any stable, firm surface is concerned, geckos can climb them. They've had geckos climb up a microsmooth surface, which is massively smoother than glass. Note: an oily surface isn't stable -- that's why it's oily (the oil moves).
They can do it because they're using physical forces to do it (attraction between molecules). It's downright freaky. Basically anything that isn't moving and has molecules in it can be climbed by a gecko.
Because of the 'electrostatic' adhesion of their feet, Geckos do have traction in low gravity. They also have traction in total vacuum (apparently someone put a gecko in a vacuum to test this. :/ ). A geckobot might be ideal for extra-vehicular work in orbit.
Then again...if the geckos' feet are electrostatic in nature, a charge applied to the surface they're walking on might cause them to repel away from the surface. So they wouldn't be much use in solar storms like the one we're currently having...
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
GrnArrow
www.bottomquark.com
Okay, this is pretty funny, but there's a really valid point buried in this thread.
While we could easily rapidly oxidize (i.e. burn) the cricket for energy, it's an awfully inefficient way to get the energy out. And as for annihilating the cricket and converting it directly to energy, well, that's problematic at best.
Somehow, our bodies are able to chemically metabolize crickets in a way that gets a lot more bang for the buck. And, if we could somehow build a bot to hunt and metabolize crickets when its battery got low, man, that would be awesome.
There's a lot of research directed at getting computers to mimic the human brain, but I think it could be equally useful to get them to mimic living metabolism.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
Where did you study engineering and/or programming? Every engineer (hardware or software) I know understands that the proper use of redundancy is a Good Thing. What good engineers abhor is inefficiency -- not at all the same thing. Redundancy can be inefficient, but it is not necessarily so.
Intelligently applied, redundancy is the hallmark of reliable and survivable systems. For example, in modern aircraft design, every critical system is multiply redundant. A good file server has many redundant components (dual power supplies, UPS, dual HD controllers, RAID system, etc). Sometimes you have to sacrifice reliability to optimize some other critical design criteria (ie: cost, weight, development time, etc)
"The axiom 'An honest man has nothing to fear from the police'
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Can +this+ open a can of coke? :)
bugger.net | MunkAndPhyber.com
Now if we could only make a robot that ran on crickets and flies....
Gecko feet stick using Van der Walls forces (weak electrical forces at the molecular level) and due credit to kuro5hin for posting this earlier today.
There was actually a piece on All Things Considered last night on this as well. It can be found in real media format here.
There is no silver bullet. Plus, werewolves make better neighbors than zombies or vampires anyway.
Can't wait till these hit the stores. Cut to scene of runner running down alley. Man stops at wall at end of alley. Cut to scene of camera facing up from the ground at large monolithic wall. Man smiles, and touches small Swoosh Gecko logo on shoes. Message flashes across screen "Life full of obstacles? Get Traction with Geckos." Cut to scen of camera rotating around man as he walks up the wall.
I wonder if geckos have traction in low-gravity. If so, a larger version of these feet might help astronauts stay attached to the floor of a space shuttle/ISS/MIR^H^H^H^H etc.
I always like the idea of designing a robot or mechanical device based on a principal proven in nature.
When you have several thousand years of evolution backing up the principal behind the design it just seems much more solid. Like the design of the bomb-walker robot (I think that's what it was called), which essentially was based on the principle of a daddy-long-legs spider.
The control mechanism contained meters above the earth supported by several extremelly long light weight legs that move across the surface.. as the robot steps on a bomb the leg is blown off but the rest of the robot remains to continue walking until all its legs are blown off.
Anyway, just goes to show you there is still a lot of inspiration for techinical innovation in nature.
Check out msnbc's article on similar lines.
Am I the only one very slightly disgusted by the fact that scientists know that a gecko's feet stick to walls in a vacuum? I mean... well, frankly, yuck.
Would a robot using gecko insired technology be running S.u.S.E. ?
Slugbot does.
BlackNova Traders
It reminds me a lot of Kevin Kelly's (ex-editor of Wired) book "Out of Control :The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World" which discusses the impact biology will probably have on technology.
GoodPint
-schussat
The hour of noon has passed. Let us go and get some Kentucky Fried Chicken.
CNN is running an article explaining how scientists finally understand how geckos can walk up glass walls and such. Check it out.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
they should make post-it notes that stick Vanderwaals-like...after a while the glue on those things just doesn't glue much any more...
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
Only they aren't reprogrammable
No article that I have seen has gone into much depth over this fact. But unless they are killing the gecko, am I to believe that they can survive in a vacuum? Is this the next animal set to destroy our species and rule the planet? Let's just hope no one breeds these things with Komodo Dragons.
Bad Mojo
Bad Mojo
"If you can't win by reason, go for volume." -- Calvin
If they can develop products fast enough, maybe they could have "Nike Trinity's" as a product tie-in by the time the sequel is out. It'd let you run around on walls just like in the movie(add your own slow motion though, and good luck getting off).
If they can develop products fast enough, maybe they could have "Nike Trinity's" as a product tie-in by the time the sequel is out. It'd let you run around on walls just like in the movie(add your own slow motion though, and good luck getting off).
Or better yet, Spider Jerusalem's "Air Jesus" shoes from DC/Vertigo Comics' Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson...
Jay (=
The attraction of gecko feet to surfaces is due to Van der Waals forces, which are based on the principle that if two atoms are very close to each, then they will induce electrostatic dipoles in each other, thereby leading to an attraction.
This is the principle by which many types of matter are held together. For example, fluid hydrocarbons are held together loosely by Van der Waals interactions. Applying an electric field to such a fluid will not vaporize it. Likewise, a gecko's feet would probably remain stuck to a surface regardless of nearby electric fields.
Sure, studying/mimicking a gecko's unique feet and legs is interesting science. But, if the ultimate goal is to create a rover that can traverse vertical faces etc. etc., then why not use what mother nature has already provided...a real gecko (or cockroach or whatever). The control and feedback systems would certainly be complicated, but I'm confident that a gecko could be trained. It's all a matter of voltage.
Gecko's traction is not based on gravity, or pressure, and is only kind of related to friction (I'm saying this because I cant' remember exactly what forces are involved in friction).
Scientists recently figured out that geckos have hairs on their feet (billions on each gecko) that they form a very complete contact with the surface they are standing on at a molecular level. Your hand pressing on a piece of glass would have millions of times less actual molecular contact.
It is this intermolecular force that keeps geckos attached to the wall or roof. I'm sorry I can't remember the exact term for this force... vander something... or something like that.. it's an attraction between molecules (not electrical)
I believe friction comes from this force as well. It is not so much the rough surface that causes friction, but the rough surface causes more extreme close molecular contact during motion...
I know of at least two:
1) Rapid oxidation. Place cricket in an oxygen rich atmosphere. Apply heat. Soon an exothermic reaction will begin.
2) E=mc^2. Details are left to the reader.
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