Robo-Gecko Climbs Glass

galactic_grub writes "Researchers at Stanford have developed a robot that mimics the extraordinary climbing skills of the Gecko. These creatures can climb sheer surfaces thanks to the intermolecular forces exerted by millions of tiny hairs their feet, called setae. The robot, Stickybot, has polymer pads on its feed with synthetic setae. Check out the video of it climbing up a sheet of glass."

Comments

A new weapon?

[Rendo]

They could be used as small weapons filled with say gas to knock people out. People would all be like, oh look a cool gecko-ooo ARRGGHHH *hack hack hack..... thud*

Utility gecko

[neuro.slug]

Maybe it can climb their server racks to figure out what's causing the burning plastic smell.

Mirrors, anyone?

-- n

Re:The Article. Shocked this is new

[Oxen]

It has only been in the last several years that scientists realized that gecko's use VDW forces to clime. It may seem obvious, but no one imagined that it would be possible to create enough VDW interactions to allow a large animal to stick to any surface. It works by simply increasing the surface contact to a ridiculous degree. What is amazing here is that this will work on any solid, clean surface. There are an extraordinary number of applications. Another huge benefit to this is that no energy is required to maintain adhesion.

Re:The Article. Shocked this is new

[SurturZ]

I'd buy one, but I am sure the robo-gecko will be full of bugs.

Bad Plan, what are they thinking?

[JudgeFurious]

It's bad enough knowing that we're getting closer every day to the moment when robots decide that we're just too much damned trouble to keep around but do we have to keep developing new things to make them impossible to escape from? Anyone else see this and start connecting the slashdot articles?

  There was the one about the Japanese chick robot followed by the similar South Korean model, then a little farther back we have our artificial "muscle".

  Combine those with the story a year or so back about the robots that power themselves by digesting organic matter and frankly all my best nightmares start out on Slashdot. I'll probably be in my 60's when the sexy Japanese carnivorous wall climbing robots with super strength come to get me.