Watch A 3-D Printed Robot Slide Under Doors

Watch A 3-D Printed Robot Slide Under Doors


The Sprawl Tuned Autonomous Robot is also pretty good at pool.


By Colin LecherPosted 08.12.2013 at 1:00 pm2 Comments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXVRCpDLSHI



Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley's Biomimetic Millisystems Lab created theSprawl Tuned Autonomous Robot, a 3-D printed insectoid 'bot that can crawl under doors, limbo-style.

STAR, for short, can extend or detract its legs to raise itself up or squish itself down--small enough to squeeze through the bottoms of doors. (It also has an on-board camera, so go ahead and tape down the space under your door for the rest of your life, just in case.) STAR only weighs about 2.5 ounces, but it can scurry across the floor at up to 5.2 meters per second. Eventually, the inventors say, it could be used in search and rescue operations.

With a 3-D printer handy, the assembly of the robot only takes about 30 minutes. So if you're looking to build a robot-insect army, you could do worse, time-wise.