Like A Cat, New Robot Lands On Its Feet

eckenheimer writes "Students at the Physics Department at Drury University have developed a robot that uses motions and contortions of its body to orient itself in zero gravity. According to the project site, 'If you've ever seen a cat land on its feet after falling while upside down then you've seen the idea behind our project.' The effort is a proposal for the NASA Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program."

Comments

Getting the Shaft

[artlu]

Dogs always get the shaft. "9 Lives" - Cats, "Land on their feet" - Cats, "Catwoman" - Cats.
Dogs are so much more fun then cats, they deserve some respect damnit.

GroupShares Inc.

Re:Cats landing on their feet

[pontifier]

Cats reposition themselves to land on their feet because they can sense the change in velocity (dv/dt = acceleration).

Your professor was an ass. In freefall you can't "sense" the acceleration because you are in a (mostly) uniform gravitational field. You need outside clues such as air rushing past you, or the ground approaching rapidly to tell where down is.

Re:Cats landing on their feet

[dcmeserve]

Actually, it's the short falls that tend to kill cats.

I remember reading about this study in Science News. Though there was one problem with their summary, as they found when they started getting a lot of mail from shocked readers. In their next issue, they issued the correction, stating that these were accidental falls...

Ironically, it would have been more scientific if the researchers had been dropping the cats on purpose (no selection problems).

Maybe they'd be able to get funding for such a study nowadays, with the Republicans in charge -- I mean, they all love to kill kittens, and kick puppies, right?

Re:Bah! I can do that too..

[martingunnarsson]

Come ON! You can't say something like that on Slashdot and expect to get away with it! All objects fall with the same speed, not matter their mass.