Robots That Bounce on Water

inghamb87 writes "The way water striders walk on water was discovered years ago. The insect uses its long legs to help evenly distribute its tiny body weight. The weight is distributed over a large area so that the fragile skin formed by surface tension supports the bug on the water. However, the ability of water striders to jump onto water without sinking has baffled scientists, until now." If nothing less, you need to see the picture: it's awesome.

Comments

Re:This is a crock of shit

[PolarBearFire]

I have trouble disagreeing with you. I looked at the pic expecting a robot analog of a water strider. Instead it was really disappointing. You can get the same exact effect using a common paper clip on a cup of water! Maybe I can attach a small motor to it and call it a water bouncing robot. I got to tell you man, these scientists are seriously making the 21st century suck.

Re:Jesus

[Gilmoure]

In Blazing Saddles, Mel Brooks (playing the governor) wears a coat with GOV on the back. In Hebrew, Gov mean back. Funniest thing I've ever seen.

Re:This is a crock of shit

[Chris Burke]

This is not science. This is bullshit.

Of course it's fucking science, even if it isn't exactly what you hoped it would be. What makes this "not science"?!

The "robot" spreads its weight out using the whole length of its legs in contact with the water. That is nothing like a water strider.

So? So our robots aren't nearly as light as a water strider (I guarantee you the robot pictured weights a lot more than 15x a water strider), and require much greater surface area to stay afloat. Also we can't create legs with the tiny micro-hairs that allow the strider to stay afloat and jump on water so easily. What do you know, nature still wins, and we still have a lot of work to do to duplicate it.

If that's the standard, pretty much all science is bullshit.

The only similarity is that they both use surface tension.

Well according to your link water striders don't even rely on surface tension.

Nevertheless: Water-walking robot. Some people would think that's cool. But that would be those of us who appreciate advancements in the state of the art, not those who think anything less than the end goal is a 'crock of shit'.