Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microrobot Developed at Dartmouth

Posted by samzenpus on from the everyone-likes-a-little-robot dept.

TheSync writes "Dartmouth researchers have developed the world's smallest untethered, controllable microrobot. The microrobot is much smaller and less massive than previous controllable microrobots. It measures only 60 by 250 micrometers. It receives power and control signals from the grid of electrodes it walks on, and moves by bending its body like a caterpillar. Not quite nanomachines, but we are getting closer!"

4 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. Units by TopSpin · · Score: 5, Funny

    about as wide as a strand of human hair, and half the length of the period at the end of this sentence. About 200 of these could march in a line across the top of a plain M&M.

    I wish I had the wit to ridicule this properly. Note the care taken to distinguish between plain or peanut M&Ms...

    --
    Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
  2. Micorobots by The+Bungi · · Score: 5, Funny
    Micorobots - they grow fungus, as opposed to microrobots. And they are smaller because they are... uh, less massive.

    Do the 'editors' ever actually read these submissions anymore?

  3. That's no robot. by mooncaine · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's a waldo. A robot is independent; a robot makes its own decisions, whether based on the environment or anything the programmers dreamed up. This device is "teleoperated", as the builders say. The word for such a thing is waldo, not robot.

  4. not "untethered" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    It receives power and control signals from the grid of electrodes it walks on

    ... therefore it is not "untethered".